Thomas Frank: The Silence of the Technocrats

Democrats let the resurgent Right claim the mantle of populism—and win.

By Thomas Frank
January 26, 2012

In 2008, the country's financial system suffered an epic breakdown, largely the result -- as nearly every credible observer agrees -- of the decades-long effort to roll back bank supervision and encourage financial experimentation. The banks' stumble quickly plunged the nation and the world into the worst recession since the 1930s. This was no ordinary business-cycle downturn. Millions of Americans, and a large number of their banks, became insolvent in a matter of weeks.

Sixteen trillion dollars in household wealth was incinerated on the pyre Wall Street had kindled. And yet, to date -- the Occupy movement notwithstanding -- the most effective political response to these events has been a campaign to roll back regulation, to strip government employees of the right to collectively bargain and to clamp down on federal spending.