Hypocrisy is nothing new to politicians and pundits, of course. The interesting question, which Frank never quite answers, is why America’s vast middle and working class hasn’t caught on. For twenty-five years, the wages of workers without university degrees -- that is, the vast majority -- have dropped steadily (adjusted for inflation) even though the American economy has almost doubled in size. Most of the rest has gone to the top. America’s top 1 percent now own more assets than the bottom 90 percent put together. We’re back to the days of the robber barons of the 19th century. The rich didn’t get where they are solely through hard work. The captains of American industry and their Wall Street advisors have shown no lack of ingenuity in robbing small investors and duping blue-collar employees. They’ve showered campaign contributions on politicians in order to get special favors and lower taxes. They’ve bankrolled right-wing media.

The real reason is that no one is explaining to middle America what’s actually happening. Not surprisingly, the Republican Party is doing everything in its power to keep the dots disconnected. But what of the Democrats? The Democratic Party used to be the party of economic equality and social justice. Democrats once spoke openly about class. Some seventy years ago, Franklin D. Roosevelt, a true patrician, condemned the "economic royalists" who manipulated markets for their own selfish purposes, and set up a system of wage protections and social insurance. Harry Truman took over the steel industry when its CEOs refused to cooperate during wartime. Lyndon Johnson established Medicare for all retired Americans. Democrats didn’t worship at the altar of the free market; they regulated and protected when necessary to assure average working families some modicum of economic security. Democrats believed in taxing the rich so there’d be money enough to give every American a decent chance to get ahead.

The cultural version of class warfare that Frank chronicles is the default mechanism when anger and frustration have no other means of legitimate expression. The Republican Party and its allies in the right-wing media now pose as angry populists protecting middle America from liberal snobs and know-it-all professionals. Even fighting terrorists has been turned into a cultural class struggle. Republicans accuse Democratic challenger John Kerry of being too effete, too "sensitive," too "French" to fight effectively. America, they say, needs a mean son-of-a-bitch -- a regular guy who shoots game and drives a pickup truck, a cowboy from Texas.