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Thomas Frank, the author best-known for "What's the Matter with Kansas?" who's also a Washington political journalist, places the blame for the election of President Donald Trump squarely on the back of the Democratic Party and its abandonment of working-class Americans.

"They love it when unions work hard for them and give them campaign funds," Frank said in a telephone interview.

"But they aren't deeply concerned with the problems faced by working-class people," he said. "They need to stop taking those people for granted."

What they got in exchange for that neglect was Trump, he said.

Frank will be in Lincoln next Sunday to deliver the 2017 C.A. Sorensen Lecture at the Unitarian Church. His address, "The Age of Trump: How We Got Here," will begin at 7 p.m.

"The Democratic Party used to be very concerned with working-class issues," Frank said. Not so much anymore, he suggested.

Frank has described the change as a shift of political attention from the working class to professionals, "the highly credentialed and creative class."