What's the Matter With Kansas? A Lecture

by Thomas Frank

In this partisan lecture, Thomas Frank distills the central argument from his New York Times best seller, What's the Matter With Kansas?, which unravels the great political mystery of our day: why do so many Americans vote against their economic and social interests? In this special recorded lecture, Thomas Frank answers the riddle by examining his home state, Kansas, a place once famous for its radicalism that now ranks among the nation's most eager audiences for a backlash that he calls a "derangement", the popular revolt against a supposedly liberal establishment.

In his approach, Frank charts how the "great backlash mobilizes votes with explosive social issues", marshalling cultural anger to achieve economic ends. As a result, conservatism, once a marker of class privilege and now the creed of millions of ordinary Americans, has become a "working class movement that has done incalculable harm to the middle class".

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Political Science, Sociology, Economics, American History

Audiobook

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Thomas Frank is the author of Pity the Billionaire, The Wrecking Crew, and What's the Matter with Kansas? A former columnist for The Wall Street Journal and Harper's, Frank is the founding editor of The Baffler and writes regularly for Salon. He lives outside Washington, D.C.

Reviews

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the last year I’ve started on a half a dozen books all claiming to explain the marriage of social conservatism and capitalism, this being the second I’ve actually managed to finish (the others written either by some criminally insane conservative whose lunatic ravings caused me to vomit in my mouth by page five or liberals whose smug sense of superiority was palpable.) This one at least was enjoyable, I suppose, yet somewhere about a third of the way in I realized the utter pointlessness of expecting one liberal to explain to another, not simply how the Republican party has managed to conflate capitalism and Jesus, but how so many have been taken in by it. The author’s personal biography, following the fortune of his hometown, is rather interesting yet in the end I don’t feel that I walked away with much more understanding. Thomas Frank's strongest argument is simply that the Democrats, in an effort to 'appeal to business', have turned their backs on the unions and working class that have historically supported them, in effect removing economic issues from the debate entirely, leaving only superficial social issues for voters to consider. Yet for me, Frank still doesn't satisfactorily explain the disconnect in today's Tea Party Republicans other than to point out:

"American conservatism depends for its continued dominance and even for its very existence on people never making certain mental connections about the world, connections that where until recently treated as obvious or self-evident everywhere on the planet. For example, the connection between mass culture, most of which conservatives hate, and laissez-faire capitalism, which they adore without reservation. Or between the small towns they profess to love and the market forces that are slowly grinding those small towns back into red-state dust-which forces they praise in the most exalted terms."

After this book I realize the utter pointlessness of looking for a rational answer where one simple doesn't exist, and I doubt I will be reading more books of this type. Still, I feel obligated to give this four stars simply for being ahead of the curve since this was written long before anyone had ever heard of Obama or the Tea Party.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Holy cow I hated this book.

This was really an unpleasant experience, I’m glad it’s over. I read the book because I am moving to Kansas and figured it would be a useful introduction to the state’s political dynamic. I was expecting an analysis that I would likely not be very sympathetic to, but I was still disappointed. The book is not so much analysis as explanation -- explanation as to what is going on in flyover country, from the perspective of a committed, doctrinaire, old school liberal. The book is not intended to win converts, it is a sermon meant only for the choir.

The book’s thesis is that blue collar workers have been duped into voting for conservatives against their economic interests. Conservatives have accomplished this by resorting to cultural wedge issues, leading the gullible masses like the Pied Piper to their own financial destruction. The author does not waste a moment’s energy explaining why liberal economic policies are better for workers than conservative policies. In typically liberal fashion, he just proceeds from that assumption, believing that to be so self-evident that his entire premise can be built upon it beginning at page 1, as though it were a proven law of physics like gravity that would be absurd to even take the time to demonstrate. The book is not meant to explain liberal economic theory. It is intended to explain to devotees of liberal economic theory why blue collar workers in Kansas and other places are voting with the Republican Party that is selling them out to corporations (another Copernican principle).

In reality, the whole book is a portrait of one man’s cognitive dissonance. He caricatures conservative leaders as fire-breathing rageaholics that gain power by ignoring economic issues and convincing rural rubes that America is going to hell in a handbasket. Yet the author’s entire premise is that America is going to hell in a handbasket, and his tone seethes with anger from cover to cover. He sounds like fellow Chicagoan Michelle Obama (the author long ago fled the land he loves so much) when he says, “In its implacable bitterness, Kansas….is where America finds that its soul….has gone all sour and wrong.” (p. 36) But with a straight face, he insists over and over and over again that conservatives are the ones peddling grievance and loathing for what America has become. Conservatives are the ones selling anger, and they are the ones that demonize their opponents as Nazis. Of course, anyone who has turned on a television in the last eight years and watched the hysterical left burn Bush/Cheney in effigy (Bush is Hitler, Digital Brownshirts, etc. etc.) will wonder who is being delusional.

One of his core arguments is that a favorite and effective trick of conservatives is to caricature liberals as east coast snobs that cannot comprehend the values of middle America. Yet the entire book is essentially an indictment of rural and blue collar workers in middle America voting illogically and buying conservative snake oil to their own detriment – in other words, we have a fancy, educated, big city book-writing type mocking the idea that middle Americans are scorned by his kind, while in the same breath he is scorning them for their values and for the lunacy they subscribe to. Hmmm….

Then there are the laughable moments, like when, in a litany of egregious acts perpetrated by conservatives, he speaks of denying women the right to vote (apparently a female legislator spoke sympathetically of this concept) and selling the Kansas Turnpike in the same breathe. Of course, when a person exalts the economic above all else and belittles the concerns of “values voters,” as the author does, a person might find these two ideas equally sinister. His complete and utter incomprehension of why people might protest the abortion industry is almost flaunted (he refers to trucks bearing pictures of broken fetuses in protest of abortion as being representative of the “dark side” of Wichita, without apparently even considering that the gruesome late-term abortions being performed there against the will of the majority might be the dark side! p. 57)

The author tries to separate himself from other liberal diatribes, but in the end he can’t resist falling back on the tired old polemics that the left has employed to such great success for 40 years. Here’s a newsflash: conservatives are racist! After making a halfhearted attempt to deny that this is the case, that there is in fact something else going on here, he just can’t help himself. Reagan, Bush, Gingrich, etc. are all spoken of in the same breath as George Wallace. He makes a valiant attempt to chart a different course from the liberal boilerplate, but like a moth to the flame, he cannot help himself and in the end surrenders.

Whether it’s citing Elliot Spitzer approvingly or claiming that gay marriage is an “illusory threat” (because it is already illegal), this book should not be read as a reliable guide of things to come. It is really just a bunch of crazy anecdotes about crazy people doing and saying crazy things (which proves so much), but it is all in service of a single idea – and that idea is “the borderline criminality of capitalism itself.” (p. 47). Does he explain why? No. Why would he? Does he explain why the sun is yellow? It just is, and everyone knows it is. Corporate Republicans understand the insidious nature of the market better than anyone, that is why they tolerate crazy conservatives – their insanity allows rich men to control the means of production and exploit the proletariat. And conservative values are little more than the opium of the people.

In substance, “What’s the Matter with Kansas” is little more than a latter-day Marx reader. In style it is pure screed. The author is apparently angry that the United States has experienced the greatest era of prosperity in history over the last 25 years. He is angry that when he visits Kansas from Chicago, things don’t look the same as they did when he is a kid.

I’m angry too. I just spent valuable time reading “Kansas for Dummies.”

[Trish · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thomas Frank makes a good deal of sense if one can listen long enough to hear his thesis. But he is his own worst enemy, providing story after statistic to describe Kansas voting for conservatives against their own best interests. His arguments are extreme and unsettling. You’d think Kansas was the most unholy place on earth with pollution, unemployment, and immigrant slave labor, but actually conservatives have only slowly been crushing the lifeblood out of the state. This last election voted 60%-40% for Trump.

20% is a lot of votes, but there are still reasonable people in the state. After all, Kathryn Sibelius, Obama’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, was elected governor of Kansas in the year just before this book came out. I am reading this now because I was lately introduced to a YouTube clip of Frank talking about his new book Listen, Liberal. I had the same reaction to him in person as I did in print. This book could have been an excellent essay without all the pyrotechnics.

I note Frank said then

"Ask a liberal pundit what ails the red states, what has induced them to work so strenuously against their own economic interests, to vote Republican...and he will probably tell you it's all because of racism.

There are undeniably a great number of places where this...[is] true, but Kansas is not one of them."

Interesting. Where did that come from, more than halfway through his book-length argument, the first mention of race. Why raise it at all? I wonder what he would say now, knowing what we all do about Kansas and their not-race problem.

[Belarius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply put, "What's The Matter With Kansas?" in its latest (paperback) edition, is a book every politically active American should read. What its author, Thomas Frank, lacks in terms of tone (the book is likely to offend some) he overcomes with an incredibly clear-sighted appraisal of the ideological framework of modern conservatives and, to an extent, of America in general.

Frank's opening thesis is that the "new conservatives" that sprang from the 1990s represent a seeming paradox: the poor further impoverishing themselves by electing politicians who place corporate interests over the economic interests of individuals. This support is, as he describes it, passionate and raging:

"This situation may be paradoxical, but it is also universal. For decades, Americans have experienced a populist uprising that only benefits the people it is supposed to be targeting. In Kansas we merely see an extreme version of this mysterious situation. The angry workers, mighty in their numbers, are marching irresistibly against the arrogant. They are shaking their fists at the sons of privilege. They are laughing at the dainty affectations of the Leawoof toffs. They are massing at the gates of Mission Hills, hoisting the black flag, and while the millionaires tremble in their mansions, they are bellowing out their terrifying demands. 'We are here,' they scream, 'to cut your taxes.' "

The ideological phenomenon Frank proceeds to unfold explains how a popular, grassroots movement could act so strikingly against its own interests: what he calls "backlash culture." The basic notion is that, faced with apparent legislative and cultural meddling from a vast and nebulous world of "liberal elites," working-class Americans across the heartland have taken to believing that economic forces are wholly distinct from cultural forces, and that America's problems are the result of cultural and spiritual (rather than, for example, economic) malaise. The economic disconnect is key:

"At the center of it all is a way of thinking about class that both encourages class hostility of the kind we see in Kansas and simultaneously denies the economic basis of the grievance. Class, conservatives insist, is not really about money or birth or even occupation. It is primarily a matter of authenticity, that most valuable cultural commodity. Class is about what one drives and where one shops and how one prays, and only secondarily about the work one does or the income one makes. What makes one a member of the noble proletariat is not work per se, but unpretentiousness, humility, and the rest of the qualities that our punditry claim to spy in the red states that voted for George W. Bush."

The problem, as Frank reiterates in countless forms, is the indignant scorn of the common folk for the sophisticated intellectuals they believe hold society's strings. In every trigger issue (from guns to abortion to evolution), the far right sees its way of life under siege by a pseudo-conspiracy of elite manipulation, and in its efforts to rebuke that elite it has embraced politicians whose first priority is evidently supporting corporate America. This shift to the right is not merely a shift away from the Democrats to the Republicans: it is also a bitter conflict within the Republican party, as the moderate "elite" have come under fire by grassroots ultraconservative candidates.

By the time the book reaches its final point (namely, how Democrats let their base slip away), Frank has already connected the dots, such that we can anticipate the result: The "New Democrats" (both in the Clinton era and in the 2004 election) have chosen to court the center (and, especially, to court corporate America), and in so doing have turned their back on the blue-collar folk who were once their strongest supporters. This betrayal, Frank asserts, is as much a factor as the persuasive rhetoric of the conservatives themselves.

Broadly, the book is brilliant. While Frank makes a strong argument for why (and how) many conservatives will reject his ideas, he nevertheless seems to strive to write in terms that might resonate with them and bring in to question the rhetoric in the way that he (a pro-Reagan youth) once did. Frank's tone is sometimes (perhaps even often) pejorative, but that venom appears largely confined to the many, many hypocrites who play a part in the story. He shows a great deal of snarl, for example, when describing the myriad talking heads of the modern conservative establishment (many of whom could only be described as "upper crust" were it not for their adoption of backlash culture). When describing the "true conservatives" with whom he speaks (the grassroots campaign workers, the part-time activists, and so forth), he shows more warmth and sympathy.

More importantly, this book should be required reading for any left-leaning American who thinks they "understand" the right. Frank presents a sufficiently comprehensive insight into the far right that it becomes much easier to empathize with the sizable segment of America it now represents. Seeped in considerable history (showing, for example, the surprisingly leftist origins of many modern conservative tactics, as well as describing the radical left wing of 19th century Kansas) and apportioned with hefty endnotes, the book is a powerful argument for how we got where we are.

[Aaron · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hating this book would be like hating cancer: Raging won't make it go away or succor those who have been damaged by it.

But it is well worth repeating the fact that this is a deeply stupid book, smug and vicious and unapologetic on both counts.

To say that Frank is preaching to the choir is insulting to preachers, who by and large seem sincerely interested in persuading their charges, and choirs, who by and large seem to sing from a place of joy and compassion. Rather, Frank begins with a hateful conclusion and raises begging the question to arrogant new heights.

You see, Kansans (and, by proxy, other Midwestern red staters) are dumb, have been conned by eeeeeevil Republicans peddling anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-tolerance snake oil and are voting against their own economic interests. These interests, which naturally he gets to define, because heaven forbid people should get to define their own, are of course those of the Democratic party and/or the modern Progressive movement. Why? Well, dearest, because he says so, that's why. Proving, or even providing evidence for, such a thing would be beneath him.

Let us forget, for the sake of discussion, that Kansas has actually done fairly well economically on most counts. That isn't relevant to Frank's argument, because he's not interested in facts.

What he has constructed instead is a vast argumentum ad anecdotum, which is not a real thing as far as I know, but it would assuredly be funnier if it had just been made up by a smart liberal like Frank. Anything can be made to appear true if you are selective enough with your anecdotes. This is how we know that the Chiefs have a great football team this year, because we saw that highlight of their quarterback making one great throw.

There is little point debating the merits of Frank's argument, such as it is, because he isn't interested in debating it, either. To him, it just is, he just knows it the way you know that big, hot, orangey thing is going to come up in the sky every morning and I know that cauliflower is made of pure evil. And many people who loved this book loved it before they read a word, because they already thought we Kansans are rubes and fools and parochial little bigots.

Happily, the world and this little corner of it are more interesting and nuanced (and considerably less tethered to hallucinatory idiocy) than the imaginary one of Frank's venomous fever dream. The real world is not divided into opposing camps of people who agree with him and people who are stupid.

I don't think that I am stupid (surely my mom would not lie to me about that!), but then again I suspected the truth about this book and read it anyway. I don't think that Frank is stupid (I have no idea what his mom thinks), but then again he wrote this book without bothering to check to see if any of it was true.

So instead of what might have been--a thoughtful, fair piece on why the red states are red--we get this rabid mutt, spraying foam and signaling from page one that it's going to bite any hand extended to it, even if extended in the hope of finding common ground.

In conclusion, if I may paraphrase the title: “What's the Matter With Our Culture?” The answer: this book. We come to our debates as if they are fights to the death, prepared to give no quarter, even if most of the collateral damage is to all the sad little facts who lined up to watch, naively hoping they would be of use to someone on one side or another.

[Phil · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read and valued (and enjoyed!) some of Frank's later works, such as Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People and The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism, but somehow skipped this one. My mistake. Although written over two decades ago, Frank presents here a compelling (and witty) understanding of the attraction of the conservative ideology that drove first Reagan into power and then the hardcore conservatives within the GOP in the 90s and beyond. If you want to understand the attraction of Trump and his policies to so many Americans, I cannot think of a better place to start.

Countless social scientists and others have examined the peculiar and seemingly fragile conservative coalition that brought us Reagan; a libertarian fringe espousing 'free markets' in bed with social conservatives, largely religion based, who railed about American's declining moral values and Roe versus Wade. I always had trouble trying to figure out how the 'religious right' got on board with folks whose political mission seemed to be to role back the New Deal, give tax cuts to the wealthy and 'free' corporate America from regulatory bodies such as the EPA. I mean, what could possibly be the common ground here? Libertarian 'free marketers' look back at the Gilded age of the 19th century with nostalgia, when corporations could do as they please and call in the national guard (or the Pinkertons) to smash labor when it got too uppity and did things like go on strikes. Both political parties basically supported this arrangement, with Federal and State economic policy stoutly pro-business and anti-labor. Sure, we had some progressives like Teddy Roosevelt and the Sherman Anti-trust act (which was, ironically, first used to bust labor unions), but the conventional wisdom of both parties did not deviate much-- fidelity to the gold standard and a balanced Federal budget, plus being anti-labor and pro-business.

Then, of course, we got the Great Depression, which tossed 'free market' capitalism, along with the conventional wisdom behind it, into the dustbin of history. The New Deal brought a new America after WWII, with laws 'taming' finance, allowing labor unions, a vast expansion of the Federal government that worked to manage the economy. It incidentally brought us the first real middle class, along with decreasing income and wealth inequality, spurred in part by high marginal tax rates (over 90 percent). The business community hated it, but the vast majority of Americans loved it-- no US president has ever been as popular as FDR!

The 70s malaise, with OPEC, increasing foreign competition for US manufactured good hammering corporations, inflation, worse, stagflation, soured many Americans. In the end, the conservative coalition backed Reagan and won, and won campaigning against the New Deal programs and promising to address the issues of social conservatives. I will stop with the historical litany here, only to mention a key factor relevant to today-- the Democrats, under Clinton, also abandoning the working class and the New Deal and pivoting to embrace the 'New Economy' and the professional managerial class (PMC). Suddenly, the downtrodden and working class had no party that expressed their economic concerns.

Well, if both parties now embraced and implemented policies that favored corporate interests and the wealthy, what really distinguished them? This is where Frank's analysis really shines. Both parties seemed to abandon working class issues, and indeed, the entire framework of class entirely; you know, the old school 'owners versus the workers' that inspired labor unions and the economic reforms behind the New Deal. The Democrats then and now dropped any notion of class in favor of some notion of meritocracy. So much for the 'party of the people'. The GOP, however, especially the socially conservative wing, essentially invented a new notion of class, one where the 'common people', the salt of the Earth, are being oppressed by Liberals. So, the old 'us versus them' emerged once again, but with a distinctly new flavor.

Frank's detailed interviews and such of various GOP figures in Kansas really fleshed this out. He broke the GOP into two wings: the old, moderate GOP, who really just want to protect their wealth and corporate interests, and the new, social conservative firebrands, who stoked the new notion of class warfare of Liberal oppression. By the by, however, both wings pushed for a roll back of the New Deal, tax cuts for the wealthy, and any policy that squashed labor and furthered corporate profits.

Why do so many common people support economic policies and politicians that promulgate them against their economic interests? Well, for starters, neither party really supports their economic interests, and they have not since the Clinton era. So, what is left? A backlash against Liberal social policies and culture. For social conservatives, it seems the free market economy is just an act of God, neither here nor there for us to mess with. Liberal social policies, however, are what politics is all about. "Making America Great Again" becomes associated not with economic policies or programs that help the poor and working class, but 'restoring American values' that the Liberal trample with impunity. The anti-intellectualism, the distrust of pedigreed authorities, science, talking heads with degrees from Ivy League schools, all of this becomes their fodder. The imaginary 'real American values' is slippery to be sure, and that works in its favor for pundits. Masks? Against the American way!

While the tour of conservatives here is fascinating, Frank does a great job highlighting that many of the 'common people' who help elect heinous, right wing republicans are intelligent and honest. They know they have been screwed, but instead of venting that on traditional class issues (owners versus workers), they finger Liberals. And what has the 'liberal' democratic party done about this? Call them 'deplorables' and move further to protect their Wall Street buddies, lawyers and Silicon Valley. Whew. And, Frank writes with plenty of wit and humor. Great stuff!

[Darlene · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although my political views are left of center, I approached this book with great curiosity and an open mind. I was hoping to understand what makes a group of people vote against their own political and economic interests. However, I didn't come away from this book really learning the answer to that question. Mr. Frank, a native Kansan, wrote a very interesting book about his very colorful home state. He talked about conservative voters voting their values.... I understand that. I feel I vote using MY values as my guide also. It seemed that what it all came down to is that conservative voters are often hoodwinked by crafty politicians into voting for one thing (their values.... like outlawing abortion, for example) but then actually getting something entirely different once the politician is in office. Perhaps I have a more cynical view than that of Mr. Frank but this is what the bottom line seemed to be.

Although I liked this book and found it to be endlessly interesting, I don't feel like a coherent answer to my question was provided.

[Will Byrnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frank looks at Kansas as a prime example of how the Republican Party has convinced working people to vote against their own economic self-interest by using so-called wedge issues. It is compelling analysis.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh. I don't know about this one. I think it has some good points and insights as to how people living in middle America see the conservative movement as relating to their self interest even when decisions made by that movement are somewhat against their self interest. At the same time I feel like this analysis "others" middle America and assumes something is "the matter" with Kansas as opposed to assuming that perhaps something is wrong with progressive messaging that is not connecting with many folks in America. I would recommend Don't Think of An Elephant - i.e. the opposite title to this one - as opposed to "What's the Matter with Kansas."

[Bren fall in love with the sea. · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Vote to strike a blow against elitism; receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our lifetimes, in which workers have been stripped of power and CEOs are rewarded in a manner beyond imagining.”
― Thomas Frank, What's the Matter With Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America




It is not just Kansas that is discussed here. It is a book that really offers some serious insight
into different parts of the country and why we all vote as we do.

Alot of books such as this are dry and not alot of fun to read. This was fun as well as educational.

Would appeal to fans of "Hillbilly Elegy ".

[Nicholas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkably account of the development of "backlash" politics in the microcosm of Kansas. Thomas Frank asks himself why working-class people would vote against their economic interests to put the Republicans (Reagan, Bush 1, Bush 2) in power, when it would make much more sense to vote for liberals who would improve their educational options and increase progressive taxation. Put simply—why do poor American vote to lower the taxes on the rich? The answer is a little more complicated than this, but it boils down to…”it's about abortion, stupid.”
An entertaining read, with just enough personal content to make it fun, and great respect for the personal integrity of everyone Frank interviews. While the author has a clear liberal argument to make, I appreciated that he did not sink into the diatribe writing style so common in many current books (except perhaps in discussing Ann Coulter, who perhaps has it coming!)
The discussion of Populism is particularly strong, and although the book come out in 2004 the content is surprisingly not dated. I wonder how many of Obama’s advisors (probably a lot!) read this book in developing his election plan.

[keith koenigsberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

A scathing polemic diatribe, this book discusses how the conservatives have won the hearts and minds of a state which, by any of the author's yardsticks, ought to vote liberal. Frank is preaching to choir with me. However, even as I sit on his side of the fence, I could not help but fault this book for a)lack of humor (the tone is as screechingly accusatory as any of the conservative pundits he enjoys bashing) b)lack of economic, scientific, or other logical background. He sets up the chapters with vignettes, and with bits and pieces pulled from various studies and articles, but time after time he leaves me feeling like his views (which are my views!) are not backed by too much evidence at all. So I went into this book looking for background I could use to support my views, and left without satisfaction..

[Ericka Clou · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was written over 20 years ago and still accurately summarizes the political problem right now, except maybe it's worse now. The chapter about the man who imagines himself to be the pope was a warning breeze of the wide spread QAnon conspiracy cult taking over far right politics now.

[sologdin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Posits the existence of a “Great Backlash,” a derangement that is the return of “a style of conservatism that first came snarling onto the national stage in response to the partying and protests of the late sixties” (5). It is apparently “like the French Revolution in reverse” (8): “sans culottes pour down the streets demanding more power for the aristocracy.” The central problem:

Strip them of their job security, and they head out to become registered Republicans. Push them off their land, and the next thing you know they’re protesting in front of abortion clinics. Squander their life savings on manicures for the CEOs, and there’s a good chance they’ll join the John Birch Society. (68)

One good example is a particular county that has 29% of its income coming from government benefits, but the residents therein want the gubmint to leave them alone (they voted to secede from Kansas in 1992, apparently, emblematic of right-populist myopia) (84-85). Ostensibly much of the Backlash movement calls for a certain sense of “authenticity” (28)—for which we must of course consult Herf’s Reactionary Modernism.

Author here wants to know how “Kansas conservative rebels profess to hate elites but somehow excuse from their fury the corporate world” (113). The answer: “At the center of it all is a way of thinking about class that both encourages class hostility of the kind we see in Kansas and simultaneously denies the economic basis of the grievance” (id.). Class for these right-populists is not about “money or birth or even occupation. It is primarily a matter of authenticity, that most valuable cultural commodity” (id.)” “what one drives and were one shops and how one prays”—“what makes one part of the noble proletariat is not work per se, but unpretentiousness, humility” (id.). So, it’s Weberian signifiers over Marxist economics. This is why the rightwing can designate as undesirable ‘class warfare’ any discussion of the “failures of free market capitalism” and then with the next breath “rail against the ‘media elite’ or the haughty, Volvo-driving ‘eastern establishment’” (114). Conservatism accordingly becomes a narrative of victimhood, of the “oppressed majority” (119).

Text contains a nice little capsulated history of Kansas, along with comical assessments of recent political figures therefrom (Brownback, Dole, et al., opportunists all, thriving on right-populist anxieties while serving the industrial causes of those anxieties). We could probably handle a text like this for each state of the US.

Apparently the norm in Kansas has shifted far off what everyone else considers sane:

Survivalist supply shops sprout in neighborhood strip malls. People send Christmas cards urging friends to look on the bright side of Islamic terrorism, since the Rapture is now clearly at hand. […] The Kansas school board draws the guffaws of the world for purging state science standards of references to evolution. Cities large and small still hold out against water fluoridation, while one tiny hamlet takes the additional step of requiring firearms in every home. A prominent female politician expresses public doubts about the wisdom of women’s suffrage, while another pol proposes that the state sell off the Kansas Turnpike in order to solve its budget crisis. (35)

So, yeah, what appears now as teabagger bullshit, but already in 2005. There is a definite economic base here that produces the deranged superstructures: “farmers struggle to make a living on the most fertile and productive land in the world” (36).

Author is a lefty (well-known from The Baffler), but on occasion slips into a rightwing rhetoric, such as the pooh-poohing of the “plutocratization” of suburbs (46), or noting that “wealth has some secret bond with crime—also with drug use, bullying, lying, adultery, and thundering, world-class megalomania” (47), or the bizarre equating of “the borderline criminality of capitalism itself” (id.). He notes, unhelpfully, that “this is a civilization in the early stages of irreversible decay” (59).

Suburbs aforesaid (of Kansas City) are developed historically through multiple phases: “Cheap federal loans” as initial condition of possibility (48), followed by school desegregation, followed by corporate flight from cities, an extreme example of “low density sprawl.” In addition to nasty suburbization, Kansas also features “a showplace of industrialized agriculture,” which includes an aquifer (its “millions of years of collected rainwater spent in just a few decades”), “trailer park cities,” “some of the most advanced union-avoidance strategies ever conceived” in an industry where workers do “what is statistically the most dangerous work” for low wages (53)—the costs associated therewith externalized, to use the rightwing lawyers’ term (54). Author draws the same parallel drawn by Cormac McCarthy in Blood Meridian (read through the conceptual lens of The Road): “after taking in its brooding slaughterhouses and its unearthly odors and the feeder lots that sprawl over the landscape like some post-Apocalyptic suburb of death” (54-55).

Urban blight in the ‘heartland’ “can’t easily be blamed on the usual suspects like government or counterculture or high-hat urban policy” (62), but rather the “culprit is the conservatives’ beloved free market capitalism.” Agriculture is no good in laissez faire capitalism, apparently, as it features an overproduction trap: “when they find themselves in a tough situation […] farmers do not have the option of cutting back production”; instead, “each of these millions of farmers works harder, competes better, becomes more efficient, cranks out more of the commodity in question and thus makes the glut even worse, and pushes prices lower” (63). Plenty of information here regarding the competitiveness of industrial agriculture; by the standards noted, it is no longer competitive in the capitalist sense, as four firms control large majorities of basic products. Author imputes to the oligopoly the position that “the competitor is our friend and the customer is our enemy” (64). Much of the New Deal’s protections for agriculture was crushed out in 1996’s Orwellian “Freedom to Farm Act” (id.), which is an “exact antithesis to the Populist revolt” (66). The ‘Food Trust’ argues that vertical integration and whatnot is for the best: “we finally have to say goodbye to the Jeffersonian fantasy of the family farm” and “transform the prosperous farmer into a sharecropper and turn the countryside into an industrialized wasteland and destroy the small towns” (id.); author is apparently annoyed by this, which annoyance registers in a somewhat rightwing register, sadly. That said, this sets the stage for the explanation of the Great Backlash, as this type of economic crisis had in the past produced leftwing agitation, rather than mean-spirited and easily derailed conservatism.

Ultimately, culture war bullshit is mixed with conservative economic positions, a standard bait and switch that teabaggers seem unable to slip: "Moaning that ‘the signs of a degenerating society are all around us,’ railing against abortion and homosexuality and gun control and evolution (‘a theory, not a fact’), the [GOP state platform] went on to propound a list of demands as friendly to plutocracy [sic] as anything ever dreamed up by Monsanto or Microsoft” (75), including clichés such as flat sales tax, abolition of capital gains and estate taxes, no state intervention in health care, privatization of state assets, deregulation of private enterprise, surrender of federal property, and prohibition on public moneys in elections—all of which serves private property and none of which is involved in standard culture wars issues.

The mechanism is clever:

The pro-life origins of the Kansas conservative movement present us with a striking historical irony. Historians often attribute the withering and disappearance of the nineteenth-century Populist movement to its failure to achieve material, real-world goals. It never managed to nationalize the railroads, or set up an agricultural price-support system, or remonetize silver, the argument does, and eventually voters got sick of its endless calls to take a stand against the ‘money power.’ Yet with the pro-life movement, the material goal of stopping abortion is, almost by definition, beyond achieving. (96)

The point here is that the culture war is unwinnable by calculated intention. Both state and national Backlashers “have made virtually no headway in the culture wars” (101). They have failed to stop abortion or abolish public schools or refute evolutionary theory. Indeed, “the issues the Cons emphasize seem all to have been chosen precisely because they are not capable of being resolved by the judicious application of state power” (id.). By contrast, however, “in only one area have the Cons achieved a tangible, real-world victory. Their intractable hostility to taxes of all kinds has successfully brought disaster on the state government” (id.). Agitation in favor of “one’s material interests are suspended in favor of vague cultural grievances that are all-important and yet incapable of ever being assuaged”; in fact, as a movement, “the backlash has pretty much been a complete bust” (121). The culture war however was “born to lose,” and “its goal is not to win cultural battles but to take offense, conspicuously, vocally, even flamboyantly” (121-22). Anti-intellectualism “is one of the grand unifying themes” (191), which ties into a more sinister anti-judaism.

The way to build this into a state of perpetual outrage is to circulate “a horizontal rather than a vertical mode of criticism, aiming to infuriate us with dozens, hundreds, thousands of stories” (123).

Conservative listservs abound with bizarre speculation about what atrocity the liberals will inflict on us tomorrow, each wild suggestion made and received with complete seriousness. The liberal elite is going to outlaw major league sports. Forbid red meat. Mandate special holidays for transgendered war veterans. Hand our neighborhood over to an Indian tribe. Decree that only gay couples can adopt children. Ban the Bible. (125)

The next step in the process is to explain the failure of the culture war: “blame liberalism” (131). Texts from the backlash “abound with inventive ways of presenting this essentially conspiratorial understanding of culture” (id.), wherein the liberal elite always swindles and sabotages the virtuous acts of the culture warriors.

Author identifies this process as “class war” very plainly (102): “I mean this in the material, economic sense, not in the tastes-and-values way our punditry defines class” (104). (There is some Weberian analysis, however, elsewise (cf. e.g. 108).) This is all contingent upon a silence regarding the underlying economic basis, of course: “The erasure of the economic is a necessary precondition for most of the basic backlash ideas” (128). Notes that “conservatives love populism in theory, always imagining super-authentic working people as witnesses to nature’s endorsement of their privileges” (151).

Part of the reason this outrageously stupid process worked is that the Clinton Democrats’ “move to accommodate the right” (176) ceded economic issues and left the only contest to be culture war BS, which is a core competency of teabagger types. Even as the Clinton Dems moved to the right, the rightwing moved into overt totalitarianism, considering themselves persecuted—but “what they mean by persecution is not imprisonment or excommunication or disenfranchisement, but criticism, news reports that disagree with them” (213), an indication that they do not like democratic debate in the slightest.

Overall, entertaining, witty, plenty of great anecdotes that I’ve omitted on nasty rightists, but on the whole perhaps somewhat ephemeral. We shall see if teabagger politics is durable.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I learned early on that reading the opinion pages of the newspaper was just spitting into the wind. You get so fed up to the point that you have to do something about it, and then you end up making it worse. Much of "What's the Matter with Kansas" was a play-by-play rehashing of the news stories that have helped make Kansas the laughing stock of the nation. While I find Frank's concept of "cultural backlash" interesting, it still doesn't answer the question of "why do rural people continue to elect politicians who don't act in their best interest." Contrary to popular opinion, Kansans aren't so stupid as to have the wool continuously pulled over our eyes as this book alludes. I believe the answer to that question is much more complicated than "cultural backlash" alone. While I find the rural-urban dichotomy and the rampant fundamentalism in the heartland fascinating, after I finished this book all I felt like I had done was spit into the wind.

*Disclaimer: I'm one of the many college-educated Kansans who left the state in pursuit of a job, and I am not a fundamentalist in any way, shape, or form.

[Sheffy · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I agree with the general hypothesis of this book that the Republican coup is to generate "social" wedge issues to get the "heartland" to vote against it's economic best interest, this book is a partisan editorial rant that lacks true scholarship and authenticity (despite footnotes). Althouh it is entertainingly written, I couldn't get through it.

[Moxie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I know this is supposed to be a great book, but, as a Kansan, I had a hard time getting past Thomas Frank's apparent bitterness about all things Kansas. Its an interesting assessment as to how Kansas got so Red. However, things have been changing significantly in this state over the last few elections so its no longer very insightful about the current state of Kansas politics.

[MM Suarez · Rating 5 out of 5]

"American conservatism depends for its continued dominance and even for its very existence on people never making certain mental connections about the world, connections that until recently were treated as obvious or self-evident everywhere on the planet. For example, the connection between mass culture, most of which conservatives hate, and laissez-faire capitalism, which they adore without reservation. Or between the small towns they profess to love and the market forces that are slowly grinding those small towns back into the red-state dust—which forces they praise in the most exalted terms."

That above excerpt just about says it it all, but I will say that whatever the author thought had taken over his home state of Kansas twenty years ago when he wrote this book, appears to have mestastasised to the rest of our country.

I thought the book was very interesting, it taught me quite a few things about the history of Kansas politics that I did not know. I for one would love to know what Mr. Frank thinks of the current political environment nationwide.

[Scott Rhee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomas Frank, born and bred in Kansas, was a poster-boy for conservatism all through his high school and early college career. Slowly but surely, a level-headed liberalism began to sink into his philosophy. Now a rather astute critic of conservatism, Frank looks at his home state in bewilderment.

In his oft-humorous, oft-disturbing book "What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives won the Heart of America", Frank tries to understand why a state, in which so many of its citizens are low-wage middle class workers, continuously vote for the political party that continuously does the most harm to the middle class. This from a state that, during the 30s, was one of several states that gave birth to one of the largest leftist movements in American history, Populism.

Frank looks at how many conservatives blame the so-called "liberal elite", an imaginary consortium of wealthy, homosexual, pro-choice, anti-Christian intellectuals bent on the destruction of the middle class, and continue to defend and even extoll the unchecked, deregulated corporations that are, as Frank believes, perhaps the real problem. Certainly corporate greed and corruption have played a major part in the dismantling of Kansas's once-fruitful now-endangered farm industry.

Frank points to the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act---a deregulatory initiative that, among other things, ended price supports and allowed for more farm acreage cultivation---as the beginning of the end for today's Kansas farmers.

In what should have been, theoretically, a way for farmers to compete more effectively, the initiative failed on many levels. Frank writes, "Farmers began producing food at maximum capacity, and farm prices plummeted, no longer supported by what were called "non-recourse loans". From a high of over $6.50 in 1996, the average price of a bushel of wheat (the dominant crop in Kansas) fell to $2.25 in 1999, the same price that it had fetched in the disaster years of the mid-eighties. At such a rate, failure was inevitable for everyone except the largest and most efficient farms... For ADM, Cargill, Con Agra, and the rest of the food trust, Freedom to Farm couldn't have been better if they had written the law themselves. (p. 65)" Yet, despite all of this, Frank notes, Kansas conservatives are less outraged by corporate evils than by what many consider more important social evils.

Social conservatism, according to Frank, is the primary focus among most conservative Kansans. Whether it is fighting to eliminate evolution and, in turn, including Intelligent Design theory in school curriculums, protesting abortion clinics, or supporting legislation to prevent marriage equality, conservatives are constantly seeing a world full of evil, most of which is the fault of those damned liberals.

"From the mild-mannered David Brooks to the ever-wrathful Ann Coulter," writes Frank, "attacks on the personal tastes and pretensions of this stratum of society are the stock-in-trade of conservative writers. They, the conservatives, are the real outsiders, they tell us, gazing with disgust upon the ludicrous manners of the high and the mighty. Or, they tell us, they are rough-and-ready proles, laughing along with us at the efforts of our social "betters" to reform and improve us, That they are often, in fact, people of privilege doing their utmost to boost the fortunes of a political party that is the traditional tool of the privileged is a contradiction that does not trouble them. (p. 116)"

Conservatives view themselves as eternal victims because, to them, liberals are an unstoppable force: they are everywhere and they control everything. This victimhood, however, is perceivable only through eyes that have, through denial and historical revisionism and an anti-intellectual capacity to dismiss anything coming from the mouths of those snobbish know-it-all "experts", ignored the economic factors (corporate deregulation, unchecked wealth, ridiculous tax codes, the business mentality that runs everything from education to entertainment) that have shaped the culture we live in.

Frank clearly demonstrates that Kansas is a microcosm of the entire United States. By dividing the country into "two nations"---conservative and liberal, Republican and Democrat, rich and poor, it doesn't matter---the real problems continue to go unsolved and unsolvable.

At one point, Frank says that people vote not where they are in life but where they want to be, a political wishful thinking that could magically happen via the one power seemingly left to them: the vote. Meanwhile, the super-wealthy and the corporations that run our government and our lives are laughing hysterically at a control board behind a curtain, waiting for the day when Dorothy pushes back that curtain and triumphantly exclaims, "We're not in Kansas anymore!"

[Jeanette · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is extremely dated, but nevertheless is high pulpit preaching to the choir. He redefines and redefines. He explains his own cause and effect beliefs more than he frames realities for those people he defines.

He is not completely wrong in any cultural wars sense of comparisons, but at the same time with all his adjective and practices home population descriptions, he doesn't really understand identity or self-identity of the voter bases all that much. Furthermore, he quite adequately describes The GREAT Backlash without understanding its core himself. Because he, himself, only sees it as against the voters' own self interests according to his own economic theory bias.

This has some interesting moments to the telling of Kansas in particular. But coming from a Blue Midwest State myself, I can honestly say he is nearly 75% wrong about/for the results of the 2000 plus years having to do with the practical applications for his elected Democrats and liberals record; what they have DONE to/for the worker of "norm" (by his own definitions of non-elite). As if his theory of economics has worked out to benefit them at any time in the last 25 years. It has not.

He defines Populist with the big P as coming out of leftist politics. And with the small p more of an uneven lowest culture here and gone for a one issue politics kind of deal. Hmmm?? Populism can run other directions and be quite different in different eras, IMHO. He doesn't begin to ascribe it adequately.

This was NOT enjoyable to read. Nor was it timely. It has some truths, but their applications to culture wars and to the economics he believes are sacrosanct truth? NOPE! Talk to most any UAW or smaller present day Union worker in IL. Let them tell you how all that Democrat Party support in the past has worked out for them in the last 20 years. Or what Union hierarchies have done to their own members too in many cases.

He's correct about some key button issues (abortion especially) but doesn't understand the full applications for being ridiculed in "better" cultural mores glib style. He just merely glimpses the tip of the iceberg in that regard. Americans are far more loyal to their home place, religion, and believing what they see, rather than what they hear preached at them. Not only in Kansas either.

This book will not win any converts to his Progressive Liberal cause. In fact, even to some central Plains Americans that are partially in that pull for some few economic or social basis issues and at a more even time (2017) would always call themselves Independent or neutral in their economics of "it's either us or the evil rich" - this book would repulse them back the opposite direction.

At points he owns the exactly precise kind of snark that "the folks" find so repulsive. Off-putting and snobby, with name call context. The more the Media and the authors (quite like this one) exhibit this constant habit of ridicule and sarcasm, the more their theories and "truths" will be rejected. It's only my opinion. But he never once addresses the Progressive messaging methods. And respect matters.

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

The morning after the election, this book was recommended to me. It was written in 2004, I think, but it could have been written today, except that I suppose it actually predicts today quite well. At any case, the arguments make every bit as much sense. It was comforting to read the things I'd been thinking and asking addressed, and to hear some new ideas as to how we are in the situation we are in. I didn't give it five stars because it slowed down a bit at the end and the writing got a little flowery, but overall it was a great read.

I marked a ton of passages, but here are a few.

"But on closer inspection the country seems more like a panorama of madness and delusion...of small farmers proudly voting themselves off the land; of devoted family men carefully seeing to it that their children will never be able to afford college or proper health care; of working-class guys in midwestern cities cheering as they deliver up a landslide for a candidate whose policies will end their way of life, will transform their region in to a "rust belt," will strike people like them blows from which they will never recover."

"This makes sense when we recall that the great goal of the backlash is to nurture a cultural class war, and the first step in doing so...is to deny the economic basis of social class. After all, you can hardly deride liberals as society's "elite" or present the GOP as the party of the common man if you acknowledge the existence of the corporate world--the power that creates the nation's real elite, that dominates its real class system, and that wields the Republican Party as its personal political sidearm."

"'America is back, standing tall,' proclaimed the TV commercials for Ronald Reagan in 1984. But for the true Reaganite, American was never back; it was always betrayed.... It never mattered how wealthy the bitter self-made men became or how many times their candidates won; their side always lost in the end. Their way of life was always under siege."

"Much has been invested in this war against intellectuals...they publish pseudoscholarly magazines that openly do away with the tradition of peer review.... Expertise is something such people deplore only when it is wielded by government bureaucrats or interfering liberals."

"Democratic political strategy simply assumes that people know where their economic interest lies and that they will act on it by instinct.... The gigantic error in all of this is that people don't spontaneously understand their situation in the great sweep of things."

"While leftists sit around congratulating themselves on their personal virtue, the right understands the central significance of movement-building, and they have taken to the task with admirable diligence."

[Sean Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has got to be one of the most read (or at least most discussed) political commentary texts of the last ten years. It seems like everyone I know is familiar with the thesis – that Kansas is an example of what is strange (and Frank thinks, wrong) about American electoral politics – people will vote against their economic interests if they think such voting is in line with their moral concerns. So, though the Republican party shits all over working class people, they will continue to vote for them because the party stands for pro life and other conservative social causes that resonate in the Heartland. Frank’s proposal to the Democratic Party seems to be to run an economic populism platform, and downplay the social issues that don’t resonate outside of the coasts. This is basically the campaign strategy of John Edwards. It’ll be interesting to see how he does in Iowa, which shares a lot of similarities with the Kansas of Frank’s book.

Frank is at least partially right in his thesis. People do not always vote their economic interests (Frank has joked in the past that this book could just as easily have been called What’s the Matter with Connecticut). But to reduce people’s “interests’ to their economic interests is simplistic, and not enough time is spent on how economic issues are framed with great success by the Republicans.

There are some throw away parts of this one as well, Frank does a mini-profile of Pope Michael, which is just stupid, and there isn’t hard sociological data to back up a lot of Frank’s assertions. Still, this a book that was worth reading.

One random side note – I was fascinated by how a number of the pro life activists in this book equate themselves with the radical struggle against Slavery (Think John Brown and Bloody Kansas). Many of my lefty friends idolize John Brown, and it is interesting to see the same hero worship from the other side.

[Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

In writing "What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America," author Thomas Frank has written such a conclusive account of conservative political stratagem that it should be a defining cornerstone of contemporary political insight. Insightful, funny, and shocking all at the same time, What's the Matter with Kansas has provided this reader with thought on the relationship of class and politics for months, years, and dare i say decades to come. With Frank's home state as a backdrop, the idea of the political conservative vehicle of the common man rising against a sharply biased liberal elite in an assumably unwinnable social war has grown to become such a significant convention in not only conservatively minded Kansas, but across the USA. Frank argues that through this tactic, conservatives have appealed to many blue collar workers who would otherwise look to liberals for political identity. This class of people, upset over being left behind by the so called liberal ivy league elites, hollywood types sucking down lattes, and other left leaning stereotypes, are desperately looking for a sense of political authenticity. And in this desperation, the Republican party has seen a clear advantage they've been exploiting since the counter-culture 1960's. Frank ultimately views this working class of conservatives as victims, trading economic prosperity for unnecessary political identity. The working class is willing to settle for economic starvation while boosting the big businesses those values they apparently share. Laissez-faire economics reign supreme, stripping Kansas of economic prosperity. It's quite an enjoyable read that only a native Kansan could provide. The personification of Kansas as soft-spoken plainsman farmer/ socially ostentatious showman- freak is quite amusing, but also poetically true. Frank has provided so many interesting tidbits regarding views of religion or adoration across Kansas that it was quite eye-opening and still relevant over a decade after the books release. Bottom line, an enjoyable, contemporary, and important book to read in our current political landscape.

[Marti Garlett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is fascinating, but I also expect will be debunked by most Kansans. I'm not a Kansan, but my husband is, and I lived there for 15 years plus four years of undergraduate experience. One of my two sons was born in Kansas; both of them were raised there. The author is a Kansan, ergo, giving him more credibility in addition to his massive research. This is a meticulously detailed tome that demonstrates that it us true conservatives consistently vote against their own self interests, including up to present day. And the Koch brothers influence is astounding and absolutely frightening. My husband gave me his darkest, most forbidding, judgmental look each time I mentioned I was reading this book...so I know, in love, that there is little open-mindedness among born and bred Kansans to the views expressed in this book. And that is the cause of the perpetuity we see. Makes me sad.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a sort of guide to understanding conservative thinking, and it was really good. A bit dated (I think it was written in 2005?) but spot on when describing the mentality that eventually shattered the Republican party and metastasized into the diseased thing we call 'conservatism' today. While completely relevant to 2014, I'm not sure what exactly the book evokes more for the reader, contempt or pity for the 'backlash' conservatives he describes here. Either way, it was depressing to learn more about the mentality that has completely washed the brains of so many of my fellow Americans (and family members). What a shame.

[Marius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite simply a tour-de-force laying out an excellent case for how the modern conservative movement was able to sway most of the country into voting for and supporting an agenda which in many ways acted against their economic interests and in some cases were counter to their moral beliefs. This books introduced me to the term backlash politics; once you interpret modern conservatism in this light you both have trouble taking conservatism seriously, but you also understand more fully the power of the conservative media.

A must read.

[Peter · Rating 1 out of 5]

What utter nonsense! I would give this no stars if I could. Extremism on either end of the political spectrum does not make for an interesting book. Mr. Frank seems to think that one party is better than the other one, and that anyone who voted for that evil party has somehow been deceived, should have their heads examined, or has fallen under the spell of some kind of nefarious plot to take over the world.

I suppose some people enjoy polemic arguments like this, but they so often become boring without an intelligent examination of all sides of the issue.

[Ned · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most autobiographical from one of the preeminent spokespersons for the economics of capitalism and (surprisingly) pop culture. This tells of his youth and intellectual development and, ultimately, seeks to understand his fellow man's inexplicable support of policies that harm him. Or such is his position. This is highly readable and will stimulate your thinking! Frank's writes a monthly page in Harper's magazine that is always fresh and provocative.

[Olivia "So many books--so little time."" · Rating 5 out of 5]

It provided an excellent explanation as to why right-wing nutjobs are so prevalent in the hinterlands.

[Patty · Rating 5 out of 5]

A nonfiction book attempting to explain the upswing in conservative voters in the midwest and other rural areas. It's a bit out of date; it was published only in 2004 but things change fast in the politics game. Nonetheless, this book is pretty amazingly prescient; a lot of his discussion of conservative Republicans choosing to vote for their values (pro-life and anti-gay marriage in particular) against their own economic self-interest could apply perfectly to the Trump tax bill that passed just yesterday.

Frank focuses on Kansas because it's his home state, but it also makes for a very interesting case study. Although these days it's almost a byword for conservatism (perhaps moreso in 2004, when the Kansas School Board had recently declared all students must be taught 'evolution is a theory, not a fact'), it once had an equally radical liberal history: Bloody Kansas, John Brown, the Populist movement of the 1890s. Frank blames the shift on Democrats more-or-less abandoning their economic principles of supporting unions, New Deal-esque social welfare programs, high taxes for the rich and strict regulations for corporations. With little to distinguish between Democrats and Republicans in economic terms, the Republicans were able to corral the cultural backlash against the social changes of the last few decades into votes – which they promptly used not to actually repeal abortion or make profanity on TV illegal, but to pass taxes and deregulations that made the rich richer.

It's a sound enough argument. My one criticism of the book is that Frank doesn't address race at all. Or rather, he does bring it up once: to say that it's not a factor in Kansas. Which, uh. I've never been to Kansas, and certainly I don't remember race coming up particularly frequently in the pundit discussions of GWB's first election, but I find that hard to believe. Even if it was true at the time, it's certainly no longer true after Obama. Frank, in general, discounts all social issues compared to economic ones – race, feminism, lgbt rights, etc. And it's not that I don't agree that economics are important! But I think he's incorrect to reduce everything that could possibly fit under the category of 'civil rights' to province of "the self-righteous" (YES THAT IS AN ACTUAL QUOTE, WTF). Both sides can matter.

Anyway, like I said, it's a good book overall, even if I think Frank would benefit from considering stuff other than economics. Like, anything. Anything at all.