00:03historian author and reformed young Republican Thomas Frank has written
00:07The Wrecking Crew, How Republicans Rule. The story he tells isn't pretty and it
00:13affects much of what's happening to us today. Here's an excerpt from the
00:17conversation that we had with Mr. Frank in September. What do you do when they
00:22cheat? Well, so far what you do is you lose when the other side cheats. The cheating is
00:30rewarded, you know, and they win. You want me to give you an example from the book is what
00:37I'm betting. I don't care if it's from the book or not. If you'd like to, the book is
00:41fine. Or from your next book. Whether you call it cheating or whether you call it just
00:45playing by their own rules or playing in an extraordinarily, you know, hardball sort of
00:52manner. Well, I'll give you, I'll up the ante. What if they're vandals? Okay. See, you're
01:01better at this than me. I mean, this is, Paula, you should explain this book. I could, but I'd
01:06rather you did since you wrote it. You have more credibility. All right. What the book is
01:11about is about the conservatism as you see it in Washington, D.C., which is a very different
01:16creature than what you see, say, in a place like Kansas or in one of your red states or
01:21your culture war battles or anything like that. And yes, vandalism is one way of describing
01:26what conservatives in Washington has done, have done. Not playing by the rules is another
01:31way. But let's say you get these guys in power who don't believe in the mission. They don't
01:36believe in these agencies that you've set up. They don't believe in government. Yeah. Some
01:43parts of government they do. They like the police force. They like the army. This is called
01:48the night watchman state. Yeah.
01:49Yeah.
01:56Yeah.
02:00Yeah.
02:02Yeah.
