Thomas Frank is a liberal by conviction but an equal-opportunity critic of America’s foundering political system. In a discussion of his new book Rendezvous With Oblivion: Reports From a Sinking Society, a selection of Frank’s essays from 2011 to 2018, he looks at a country divided and in disrepair, undone by folly and exploitation. Inequality has manifested itself in our cities, our jobs and, of course, our politics.

Frank, a Kansas City-area native, is a former columnist for the Wall Street Journal and Harper’s, founding editor of The Baffler, and author of Listen, Liberal: Or What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?, among other books. A frequent Library speaker, he drew more than 650 people for his April 2017 presentation What to Make of the Age of Trump.