When I talk to my friends, family members and colleagues about the world of books, they often believe this space is brimming with meaningful, sufficiently aggressive challenges to the status quo. For the average book consumer, this perspective is understandable. The world of books is an overwhelmingly liberal space. If you equate modern liberalism with progress, naturally you’ll perceive the literary community as a driver of net positive leftward change.
Before I get to my leftist critique, I want to acknowledge that the world of books has had a net positive impact on perceptions of social issues and representation. Because of popular literature and its film adaptations, many of us are less bigoted than we would be otherwise.
In terms of economic progress, however, “the literary establishment,” — as I like to call it — has been a force for maintaining the status quo of the two-party system, primarily through unconditional support of the Democratic Party and its legally-bribed centrist candidates. This status quo includes a growing homeless population, the normalization of job market destruction, record-high income inequality and endless wars.
As I explain in my article defining liberalism, modern liberalism is the philosophy of unconditional support for the Democratic Party, our neoliberal/centrist party. Supporting this party means remaining in the two-party system where the aforementioned societal horrors fester, often causing the very far-right rise the Vote Blue No Matter Who strategy is supposed to prevent.
Neoliberals, who are incapable of quickly moving our needle of economic progress, currently dominate the world of books. The three most influential book clubs in the country are run by:
- Jenna Bush Hager, George W. Bush’s daughter, whose net worth is likely around $14 million, according to Parade
- Reese Witherspoon, a Hollywood elite worth $440 million as of 2024
- Oprah Winfrey, a billionaire and former mega donor to the Biden-Harris campaigns
Speaking of billionaires, we all know Jeff Bezos controls Amazon, the biggest online book marketplace in existence. Bezos has been a Democrat as well, although he has now cozied up to Trump.
Most commercially and critically successful American authors embody the Vote Blue No Matter Who attitude. Stephen King and John Grisham have been big donors and campaign surrogates to lobbyist-corrupted Democratic Party candidates. In 2022 Grisham was a campaign surrogate for Cheri Beasley, whose campaign accepted many thousands of dollars from lobbyists.
Why would these people be motivated to use their platforms in a way that would challenge our economic status quo?
In the middle and lower levels of literary establishment gatekeeping, we have literary agents, publishing house editors, literary magazine operators, hosts of smaller book clubs, bookstore operators and literary academics. The vast majority of these people vote within the two-party system. They supported Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
These folks aren’t wealthy. They don’t intend to uphold the status quo. Instead they act out of fear of the political right, not realizing that the two-party system is a pendulum that inevitably swings rightward.
If you agree with my assertion that these are the people who control most of the literary landscape, how can the average literary book be kindling for significant progress?
I believe an injection of leftism is the only way we can make the world of books a powerful force for both economic and social advancements that sufficiently benefit poor, working class and middle class people. If you want to help test my theory, please support The Rauch Review through Patreon for as low as $1 a month.
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