Introduction
This paper will make a review of the book, The Wrecking Crew by Thomas Frank. The author has explicitly examined and narrated how corruption becomes uniquely blameable in a democratic setup in violating the basic principle on the part of the government, of serving the citizens of the country. He has narrated how the conservative Republican Party catered to the cause of specific class of individuals and vested interests.
Main Text
In his book The Wrecking Crew, Thomas Frank has gone back to the earlier days of the conservative upheavals and described the increasing influence of the ruling alliance in disintegrating the government. Instead of cutting down upon the government that they asserted to dislike, the conservatives had just sold it away with the deregulation of some industries and curtailing on the funding of others. They were always engaged in transforming the government’s public policy into a war that aimed at bidding for the private sector. Frank has painted a picture that is complicated and full of conspiracies in illuminating the controversial policies followed by the Republican Party during the 20th and 21st centuries.
Although the author’s assessment and interpretation of major events, participants and principles is quite accurate and reasonable, his crushing blame on the Republican Party as being the perpetrators of all the wrongdoings in the country is not justified. This way the Democrats and the citizens are exempted from their roles in causing the democratic set up to decline and decay. The ultimate result portrayed in the book relates to the Republican government demonstrating itself as being incompetent and ineffective thus providing further evidence that it is internally not capable of functioning and requires to be supplemented by professional and private initiatives in doing the required jobs effectively.
The most effective and criticism generating portion of the book relates to the section on Marianas Island of Saipan. The author has portrayed Saipan as being excessively corrupt with prevalence of inequality of income, nepotism and politicization of big businesses. In being depicted as the perfect model of the ideals of conservatism, the circumstances appear to be rather horrific possibilities. Frank has also observed specifically that the mess created in Iraq is primarily due to attempts to force the ideals of free market economies on a foreign country. In being implemented by gullible and young ideologists, such policies and initiatives implied that Iraq and Saipan were being treated as virtual laboratories of freedom whereby modern day capitalists attempted to realize their dreams. Frank has explicitly observed that such attempts proved to be shameful American nightmares.
The Wrecking Crew does not lay much ground in creating any good news and reveals that the national government was rendered hollow and ineffective under the conservative control of the Republicans. The author has clearly illustrated that all this was not due to any mistakes but was a deliberate attempt not only to remove government regulations and to privatize the government but to implement such changes on a stable basis by destroying liberalism and the Democratic Party. Frank has demonstrated very well that the current political practices aim at continuing the wars by all possible means.
Conclusion
Frank has argued that it is not a matter of coincidence that the same politicians who guffawed at the prospect of an effective government had set up a regime which came to be characterized with incompetence. The country will not be able to shake itself away from the effects of purposeful mismanagement and misgovernment by way of the remedies that go with elections. The conservatives were obsessed with achieving a sustained victory and had made hectic efforts in enshrining the free markets into being a permanent doctrine of the state. The book imbibes the wit, analytic brilliance and audacity of Thomas Frank in making it a unique work of revelation, which is as yet his most compelling and informative attempt.
Works Cited
Thomas Frank, The Wrecking Crew, August 2008, Publisher: Henry Holt & Company.