How Conservatives Won the Heart of America - What's the Matter with Kansas?

I cannot heap enough praise on Thomas Frank's "What's the Matter with Kansas?" It's no wonder it became a classic. I wanted to read this book for years, and the refreshing truth is that it is still relevant eight years after its first publication. As a former resident of the midwest (although not a native) I found it especially amusing and insightful. My favorite part, however, is how he completely debunks the notion that the moral deterioration of society somehow has a direct causal relationship to "liberal" politics. A real gem, and a must-read!

This well-researched and highly readable book looks at the social, political, cultural and economic forces that have made life meaner for many working Americans, and why so many Americans have swung toward fundamentalist religious conservativism in response. (He takes Kansas as the focal point of his research, but his findings and conclusions apply just as well anywhere in the country.) Thomas Frank explores why white, working class Americans have embraced a form of radical cultural conservatism that relentlessly undermines their own economic interest. He shows how their identification with a package of social and cultural values (anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-evolution, anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-government and so on) has become so powerful that it blocks awareness of how conservative policies steadily undermine their wages, their health care, and their access to education. The book points makes clear the self-consistent nature of this set of conservative ideas, and makes clear why it's useless to counter this social movement by reciting facts and statistics.

This is a scary book: the more political power radical conservatives obtain, the more they will be able to push through their program; the more their programs succeed the more their standard of living declines; this just gets people angrier; their anger gets channeled into political actions that increase their power. And so it feeds on itself. The ending will not be pretty.

Few other writers are describing the importance of speaking to ordinary Americas at the values level (rather than the policy level) in order to counter this disturbing trend. An important voice that should be heard is that of George Lakoff, who shows the role that values play in forming political opinion, in his book Don't think of an Elephant, and his work at the Rockridge Institute (...)

All centrists, true conservatives, and libertarians who wish to keep this country from become a bastion of religious fundamentalism should read this book and understand its implications. So should progressives who want to show conservative middle class / working class people that while their pain and alienation are absolutely real, the solution they have embraced will make it worse not better.

The conservative backlash of permanent outrage lives on. Abortion and gun-nuts ignore the economic issues that destroy their lives, while gay marriage and legalized marijuana have, in fact, advanced significantly. This was written before the crash, but it doesn't read like it.

This book is an accurate description on the right's successful tactics in recruiting the blue collar crowd in middle America. It also describes how it is, that a whole set of people will put their own self interest and financial well being secondary, in order to pursue an ideological view.

It is a must read (I don't use that phrase often) for any political science student, or social science afficionado.

Thomas Frank accurately describes the dominant politics of my home state of Kansas. Oddly enough, the thesis of the book can be described in a Wall Street Journal essay that was used to describe the Arab states in their conflict with Israel, titled "Where hatred trumps bread," where a manipulative ruling class has for decades exploited an impoverished people while simultaneously fostering them in a culture of victimization that steers this peoples fury back persistently toward shadowy, Cosmopolitan Other. In this tragic land unassuageable cultural grievances are elevated inexplicably over solid material ones, and basic economic self-interest is eclipsed by juicy myths of national authenticity and righteousness wronged.

Kansans view the Cosmopolitan world as being against them and they fiercely protect their world from outside influences and "government intrusion" in their lives. But they do it with such hypocrisy.

They rail against the culture of Hollywood, but go to just about any farm and you will almost always find a satellite dish bringing in HBO. Farmer's rail against an uncaring bureaucracy dictating to them how they should farm and take care of their land. They just want government out of their lives, and yet spend their winter months waiting for the mailman to bring their government subsidy check. Small town Kansans will fight against anyone mocking there choice of living the small town life, and yet will travel 100 miles to Super Wal-Mart to get groceries, rather than support their local hometown independently owned market.

Kansans will forever mistrust a government and culture of Eastern Intellectuals and Hollywood know it alls. These are the same people that have proposed turning their home; the plains back to a park for the Buffalo (The Buffalo Commons), and who criminally charged them as murderers...of their own livestock (k.d. lang & Oprah)!

The only flaw in Frank's ideas is that they only reflect the politics of those in Kansas who actually participate in the political process (i.e. vote). The majority of the state does not vote and do not participate. Only 54% of the voting age population of Kansas voted in the 2000 presidential race, 38% voted in the 1998 congressional elections. Of the few Kansans that did vote in the 2000 presidential election, 42% actually did vote for someone other than George Bush.

The majority of Kansan's were horrified at the political turning point for the conservative republicans, the summer that Operation Rescue invaded Wichita. Every abortion-crazed nut came to our state and went nuts. Little did we know that the seeds this movement planted would grow up to rule us.

The difference between the ruling Kansas conservative Republicans and the indifferent majority is that the cons willingness to fight and make a scene (because they view themselves as victims) and the majorities (self-sufficient, fatalistic) indifference and unwillingness to upset their family and neighbors...

I have lived in Arizona since 1985, and have very few memories of my life before then. Hence I have grown up in a Red state, and have been surrounded mainly by Republicans most of my life. Many of their opinions and beliefs puzzled me as they seemed contradictory, baseless, and often nonsensical. For example, I've met many white, male Republicans who, without any second thoughts, firmly believe that rich elitists use their wealth and power to elect Democrats who screw over America. Yet these same Republicans believe that rich people should not pay higher tax rates than poor people! Another example, I've met many white, male Republicans who absolutely hate other countries, especially poor Third World ones like China and India. Yet they will preferentially shop at places like Walmart that only stock items from poor Third World countries.

At first I thought all of this was due to Arizona having a crappy public school system; this state is annually among the low end in terms of SAT scores, high school graduation rates, college attendance rates, literacy rates, etc... But I have been disabused of my illusions by this wonderful book. Its not just Arizonans that are dumb by voting Republican and against their pocket book; its Kansas and a whole host of other states. I've met so many Arizonas who really don't know how their tax dollars are spent; but are happy as long as they can buy automatic firearms, gays can't marry, and their kids have to pray in school. The author of this book dissects and analyzes this stupidity wonderfully and concisely. Everything from class views, to views on taxes and government spending, to ideas about right and wrong; this author has put his finger onto the pulse of the Republican electorate. I've often wondered what book to recommend to my friends who are puzzled by American voting patterns. I believe this book is the one for them. Overall, a great read; it does for the late 20th/early 21st centuries what Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" did for the early 1800s.

Very well written; sprightly even. If you read this book and also "The Righteous Mind," you will be able to give a thoughtful answer the next time Ed Schultz asks you, "why do these people vote against their own interests?"

I wanted to learn why Kansas became such a conservative state and why religion has dominated the state. This book gave much information about why the turnaround. So, if you are interested, this would be a good read. Donated the book to m local library upon completion.

This book should be required reading in high school. To be able to understand the basis for where this country is now and how we got here is necessary to making informed decisions about the two party system of government.
I highly recommend this book, but it's not good bedtime reading if you're a Dem like me. It makes for some frustrating enlightenment about how the R's do business..and hence not soothing for sleep!

This book makes it clear that the 2016 election of Donald Trump was an outgrowth of conservative ideology decades in the making. Eventually mainstream conservatives will deny the truth: "Donald, I never knew thee." But twenty years before the election, in 1996, Frank had already described every Republican belief that would motivate Trump voters. There is no such thing as Trumpism. In my opinion this book has a better analysis of the 2016 election than any that has yet appeared (apart from discussions of the collusion). If you want to know about 2016, I can't think of a better place to start.

It explains clearly why this contradictory situation happens.
The best paragraph is
My words....
As the woking people and the poor get totally fed up, they march to the gated mansions of the rich, as the rich tremble looking out their windows to the masses yelling and screaming. " We are not going to take it any more and we are to REDUCE your taxes.!

His opinion expressed in his book actually offers a reasoned opnion on why the Republican party has gotten so focused on such fringe cultural concerns instead of watching their pocket books and doing whats right for everyone instead of the top 1% or big business's lobby.

This is one of the most insightful analyses of the contemporary political scene in the United States that I have read. I am writing this on the morning following a presidential election whose outcome is probably going to baffle a host of well informed, issue-oriented Americans for sometime. Thomas Frank, however, provides marvelous keys for understanding what has transpired, and also should provide some warnings to Democrats concerning how the political landscape has been transformed in recent decades.

Frank wants to explain a dilemma. On the one hand, the Republican Party has embraced a set of policies and enacted a wide range of legislation that hurts most Americans economically and provides a benefit to only a very small segment of the American population. Statistics provided by the Fed and the IRS have documented over the past twenty-five years a sharp and dramatic concentration of wealth in the upper one percent of the population. For instance, in 1979 20% of the national wealth as defined by the Federal Reserve was concentrated in the top 1%, while in 1997 39% was, and with the three rounds of Bush tax cuts focused on primarily benefiting the wealth and our largest corporations, it is not hard to imagine that that figure might have climbed to 45% or higher. And yet Americans continue to vote for members of a party that seems to be dedicated to intensifying that trend (a large number in the GOP are now talking about a national sales tax and eliminating the income tax-as opposed to Europe, which has a value added tax but also a tax on the wealthy, which is not what is being suggested here-which would dramatically increase this shift of wealth away from the middle class). How is this possible?

By examining the political scene in his home state of Kansas, Frank is able to show how Republicans have managed to attract a vast segment of the American population by fomenting culture wars, by fixating millions on issues that resonate deeply such as abortion, gun rights, gay rights, defense of marriage amendments, nonexistent religious persecution (as seen in the absurd GOP letters mailed in Arkansas, West Virginia, and elsewhere that if Kerry were elected the Bible would be banned), and similar issues. Despite the fact that the GOP actually passes no legislation related to any of these cultural concerns, and despite the fact that what the party actually does is pass a great deal of legislation that continues the concentration of the national wealth in the hands of a conservative economic elite, these cultural wedge issues have been deployed repeatedly to get people across America to vote against their own best interests.

For me the most striking pages in the book come near the end when Frank talks about the problems that the Democrats have caused themselves by ascribing more and more to the policies set forth by the Democratic Leadership Council (the DLC). These Democrats have attempted to move the Democratic Party further and further from its base in ordinary workers, and more and more to a pro-business stance. The result has been that on economic matters, the Democrats look more and more like Republicans. As Michael Lind in his insightful book UP FROM CONSERVATIVISM has pointed out, Americans tend to be conservative on social and cultural issues, and liberal on economic matters. But Frank points out that by moving to a conservative position on economic issues, they have lost their one great point of contact with the American masses. Millions of Americans, faced with a Democratic party that no longer has anything unique to offer them on economic issues, have shifted sharply over to a Republican party that at least speaks to their cultural and social concerns. In short, the DLC is a recipe for disaster. As leading Democrats who espouse DLC principals like Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton continue to push an economic agenda built around the concerns of business rather than working class Americans, we can expect Republicans to continue to prosper in the future. Frank argues, and I think he is correct, that it will only be when the Democrats recover their populist economic roots that they will reverse the trend of the past two elections. I hope that Frank's next book is devoted entirely to this issue. The Democrats need a wake up call, and while this book partially achieves that by explaining the success of the Republican Party, I think we also need one that explains more explicitly the failures of the Democrats.

This is a must-read book for everyone interested in politics in America, whether from the left or right. Though Frank is a leftist, those on the right will gain additional insight into why their side has achieved much of their success, while those on the other side can start understanding why so much of America votes to further policies that are so detrimental to their own well being.

A supurb piece of modern story telling. Author has a severe liberal bias, so we don't see both sides of the Kansas question....yet it is easy to see his side of how the far-right wing hijacked Kansas politics. There are more than tumbleweeds in his state!

written from a very left wing liberal point of view this book is a good read I enjoyed it, The democrats seem to have found themselves on the wrong side of morally straight folks once again and of course the continue to whine about it.

It was with high hopes and excitement that I picked up "What's the Matter with Kansas" while browsing my local bookstore. I have lived all of my formative years and most of my adult years in Kansas. Lordy, I know that there is a lot wrong with Kansas (the wheat bowl of the world doesn't know how to bake a good loaf of bread, for one thing). And, besides, it is a rare occurrence for my beloved, much maligned state to actually make its name into a book title that lands smack dab on the new arrivals table of a national chain like Barns and Noble! Attention like that is pretty exciting.
I'll admit that I was hoping to find some real dirt, here. Sordid stories of local politicians and bosses running brothels on the sly while hampering a grade schooler's efforts to run a lemonade stand, or something of the like. So I almost dropped a load when I learned that, what is wrong with Kansas is that a majority of its citizens vote Republican! Lordy lordy lordy. So it all comes down to that. These poor hard working people of Kansas are actually voting for the rich white man's party! How stupid could we Kansans (though I've recently moved to a state that votes Democrat, and believe me, it hasn't made me personally any richer) be? This strikes me as similar to the Democrats claim that an African American person who votes Republican is one sorry, misguided fool. They say the same thing this author says, "Hey! We're the good guys here. Why are you voting for a party that has successful people in it? Get back where you belong, you loser!"
I'm actually proud of my fellow Kansans who stubbornly vote Republican, who insist that no matter how tough it gets, they'll get by fine without the handouts, thank you. I think that they vote Republican because they cannot stand the condescension of a party that says, "You cannot get by without us." Who wants to be talked to like that? If you have an ounce of pride the first thing that you think in response is, "Oh yes I can!"
Anyway, the book is an entertaining book, which is why I gave it four stars. I've read worse. You'll probably enjoy it, too. Just don't think that the ticket to wealth and happiness can be had by voting for any party ticket, whatever it may be.

Good book. But, Frank starts off with the premise that the consumer is the problem instead of the seller. He blames the people for the current Democrat Party woes instead of the attitudes and policies of the Democrats themselves. Seriously? Did they honestly expect to get elected when they called half of the country--many of whom were undecideds by calling them "Deplorables." Perhaps this is why Trump won Kansas by 59%. One would think that things would change but Hillary kept on blaming the Russians, the CIA, the NRA, the Boy Scouts, Fox News, WikiLeaks, Paula Jones...everyone but herself. By arguing that the consumer is the problem, and not the product (or the candidate), the Democrats are just burying their heads in the sand. Think of it as selling a car. The Republicans offer a Lincoln with all of the amenities, and the Democrats offer a 1971 Ford Pinto with nothing (not even a radio). When the buyer purchases the Lincoln, the Democrat yells at him for being stupid,,,instead of saying, "What could I do for you to get you to sell this car?" Until the Democrats change, they will keep on losing by offering car buyers lemons (its seems full on government takeover of everything is popular these day) that no one wants to drive. PS. There was a time when the Democrats offered to blow up the Soviet Union 10x more than the Republicans, and cut taxes 100% more than the Republicans, but not anymore.

Thomas Frank explains why so many poor white Americans vote Republican. The Democrats have traditionally been the party of the working class and the GOP's main aim has been to lower the taxes of the rich. Frank concluded that the working class is voting against its own economic self-interest and started to investigate. He believes the GOP are masters of bait-and-switch. The party focuses on cultural issues before elections but once in power, it is only interested in cutting taxes. What's the Matter with Kansas? was published in 2004 and provides only a partial explanation of what happened in the 2016 election, but it is still a good read. Frank was born and raised in Kansas.

In 2000 Frank discovered that some of the poorest counties in the country had been voting for the GOP and wanted to know why. The poorest county in the US was in Nebraska. and over 80% of its electorate voted for George W. Bush. Kansas also has a number of poor counties which have failing ranches and farms. Frank maintains that the working class in the heartland has been voting on cultural issues rather than economic ones. Frank believes that they are being duped and manipulated.

For the past 30 years, huge amounts of money have been generated in the global economy. And as we know most of it has gone up to a tiny fraction of the population. There has been a huge amount of growth, but hardly anyone has seen any benefit. Since early 2008 the US economy has grown by 12%, but that is not reflected in the wages of most people. Ordinary people are voting for a party which is allowing the rich to get richer and is dismantling the welfare state.

Frank believes the GOP has concluded that large numbers of people are mostly concerned about cultural issues, particularly: abortion, evolution, guns, patriotism, immigration, gay marriage and the coarsening of the culture. People have been encouraged to blame liberals and the elites for the negative changes in society. Frank believes that the free market and society itself are driving the cultural changes, not liberals. Hollywood and the media just reflect the way society is evolving. The Republicans have promised to return the culture to the way it was in the 1950s, but they can’t or won’t deliver on their promises.

According to Frank, ordinary voters want their leaders to appear authentic. George W. Bush and Donald Trump may have had privileged upbringings but they appear down to earth to many voters. It helped in the Midwest that Bush was a born again Christian. Frank also blames the Democrats whom he believes have abandoned working people. After Walter Mondale lost to Reagan in 1984, the Democrats moved to the right and picked Bill Clinton. Frank believes that the Democrats need a sharp turn to the economic left. He argues that most Democrats have lost the ability to speak to ordinary people and they need to find politicians who can.

Since Reagan, many Republicans have advocated trickle down economics. Kansas has been used as a laboratory by its governor, Sam Brownback, to demonstrate the benefits. By law, Kansas is not allowed to run a budget deficit, so any tax cuts must be matched by cuts in spending. In 2012 Brownback, made tax cuts which have resulted in big cuts in public spending. The cuts to school budgets and road maintenance have been unpopular. Kansas is a rural state and there is limited public transport, so they need good roads. An educated workforce is a minimum requirement to remain competitive in the global economy. The tax cuts for the rich were supposed to deliver higher levels of economic growth but this has not happened. The Kansas City Star recently claimed that “Kansas is mired in a self-created fiscal hell.” Kansans appear want old fashioned cultural values but they have discovered there can be an economic price to pay.

"What's the Matter..." simply points out that the conservative right has distracted Kansans with wedge issues while rewarding their corporate supporters with legislation that favors the corporation's bottom line. To prove that point, Frank employs anecdotes & examples that illustrate his POV. For example, the description of Kansans packing up & moving their town to avoid re-paying the maturing bonds reflects present day corporations holding communities hostage by threatening to move if the city doesn't meet its demands. That's reality & easy to understand. Corporation wins & the citizens lose. Citizens' pockets are picked while the corporation & the politicians clash hands in mutual support. To say that Frank doesn't provide enough examples to support his POV suggests that some readers skipped a few chapters. But more important than the historical comments provided here it may be time for a re-read of "What's the Matter..." in light of Kansas' & Governor Brownback's recent tax plan that rewarded the corporations & the top 1 % & consequently left Kansas with a hurtful budget shortfall that fails to support programs like education that even the CONS believe important. Yet the reader discovers that the voters found that the Governor & his disastrous plan deserved another term. Why does he deserves a 2nd term? Having just completed my re-read, I closed the book with a "Wow! Kansas has done it again." Probably an issue for a Frank sequel?

I only read the sample with plans to purchase due to a certain intellectual itch for me but I ended up being irritated instead. I'm a left leaning moderate Kansan, a different kind of evil from the conservative Kansans this book focuses on, but this irked me none the less.

The author, clearly on the mid to far left from his tone, seems confused on his messages. He uses pages of stereotypes to describe conservative Kansas then pages to describe their sterotypes of liberals and admonishing the Kansans for having them. I'm hoping that this blatant hypocrisy is so he can make an ironic joke later since he spent so long on the

I found this book to be quite prophetic. Written in 2004, reading it today a full decade later I find that it more or less predicted the rise of the Tea Party, the GOP civil war, the Democratic abandonment of the working class, and the hyperpartisian divide between left and right. I feel like the reason people would have failed to predict the Tea Party, GOP civil war era would be that before 2009 most probably looked at rural right wing populism as dumb people voting against their own interests based primarily on racist sentiments, basically Nixon's Southern Strategy. But Thomas Frank was warning us here, as a former Kansan, that while race plays a role in the deep south, the larger rural/working class America backlash against their own economic interests was motivated primarily by something else, and thus could be something that could spread onto the larger national stage, which it now has.

His thesis, which I tend to agree with, is that the ruling class capitalists (financers, CEO's, bankers, investors, etc) needed locations and workers that weren't environmentally protected, and unionized so they moved from metropolises to the middle of nowhere to convince a bunch of folks out there that they were actually in this together fighting against a common enemy. The common enemy they created was "the liberal." This caricature villain was the lawyer, teacher, professor, scientist, psychologist, judge, TV producer, or author type of person that was interpreting our laws, teaching our kids, creating our popular entertainment, making scientific discoveries, etc. They were just a bunch of free-loading bookish, snobbish people who thought their big brains and fancy educations entitled them to tell "real Americans" (who were straight talking, church going, problem solving, humble, happy Jeffersonian yeomen people) how to live their lives, despite their not actually producing anything. The "real Americans" were moral, humble, simple folks who worked hard to make the world go round, and "liberals" were overeducated, privileged snobs whose only contribution was trying to destroy "real America."

Of course the key was to present this sort of class resentment as something other than class resentment. It was class resentment masquerading as culture resentment. In this description of America there are no classes, and thus there can be no class conflict. The wealthy business class is merely the most successful portion of the "producer culture," while the liberals were the "welfare culture." It didn't matter that within both of these "cultures" there were rich and poor people. In the producer culture the poor working class grunts were thrown in together with the white collar business elites, while in the welfare culture the highly successful white collar professionals were lumped in with poor urban minorities. Rather than poor urban minorities and poor rural working class grunts uniting against the business class that oppressed them both, the rural working class was told that their friends were actually not the hyper-educated liberals that want to help them, but rather the rich conservatives that want to systematically destroy and exploit them.

What I found most interesting throughout the book were the "then and now" comparisons. Kansas was the hotbed of Populist and later New Deal radicalism. Poor, simple, highly religious folks used to fight very hard for their own interests, but today they fight to pound themselves further into the ground. Thomas Frank brought forth some hypotheses on why this change occurred. In his view it was first the 60's counterculture pushing culturally traditional working class rural white folks away from Democrats, and then later in the 90's the Clinton Democrats establishing the triangulation strategy of making strict adherence to conservative capitalist economic policy a non-partisan issue. In other words, Democrats abandoned the working man first culturally and then economically, and left them with no choice but to seek out the revenge of going way off to the right, even though today's corporate Democrats are at least somewhat better for the common man than the corporate Republicans.

I also found Frank's "then and now" rebuttal of cultural warrior revisionist history pretty interesting. Today's warriors of anti-abortion or anti-evolution or anti-gay sentiment try to present themselves as the modern day equivalent of the abolitionists. However, as Frank points out, under the current conservative perspective of culture constituting class, and elite costal intellectuals being demonized, the Kansas abolitionists, who were largely outsider northerners who moved to Kansas to stop the Missouri spread of slavery based on high minded ideals they'd learned and thought about from ivory tower environments would be viewed as the enemy by the modern "real American" who so hates those paternalistic coastal intellectual elites.

Overall, I'd say it was a very good read, although it has a tendency to take a while to build to substantive points, going off on tangents often involving personal anecdotes. I understand why the author does it with him having witnessed the Kansas evolution first hand and having evolved himself (in the opposite direction of most of the rest of his native state), but it was a little long and unnecessary. Other than that, though, a very good read.

Must reading for anyone wanting to know what the hell happened to our nation politically between the late 1800's to present times. It's also funny, well-researched, and a joy to read, which means you can return to it again and again. You'll never look at America the same way once you've gotten a taste of Cupcake Land and a strong whiff of Garden City, as only Frank can describe them as metaphors for our twisted circumstances, where the rich get richer because the poor vote against their own economic interests. Absolutely fascinating -- and a serious come-to-Jesus warning shot to Democrats wondering how the Republicans continue to exercise power, and made Trump possible. If you read one thing this next month. let it be this.

This perceptive and well-researched book documents the nitty-gritty details of how wealthy Americans have hood-winked middle- and working-class voters into supporting legislators and legislation that destroys their way of life while making the rich even richer. Frank has detailed how wedge social issues are used to recruit voters for conservative candidates, but after elections, nothing is done to advance those issues, while legislators proceed with their real agenda, which include lower taxes on the wealthy, ending regulation of big business, union-busting, driving down wages to provide a low cost labor pool for business, and so on.

I found this book last month in a used bin and read it ten years after it was written. Sadly, not much has changed, except for the worse.

All Democrats and liberals should read this book to gain an understanding of why Bush won the 2004 election, and the force of the grassroots movement behind the Republican victory.

Author Frank uses his birth state of Kansas as a case study to explain America's political shift to the right. He provides real insights into the motives and psychological factors that drive the right wing and he attempts to explain why working-class stiffs vote for candidates who, once elected, implement economic policies that favor the rich and actually HARM working-class voters. It's a tale of rage, resentment and anti-intellectualism wrapped up in "faith," the flag, and a moralistic backlash against a changing American culture.

Unfortunately, Frank's writing is a bit redundant--the same points are made over and over again. This shouldn't stop you from reading it though.

This well-known book argues that many people who would normally vote Democrat are manipulated into voting Republican, hence acting against their fundamental economic interests, through the exploitation of cultural issues. Thomas Frank speaks of such voters as exhibiting a great derangement. It seems a bit strange to me that a Democrat like Frank would claim that people who were abandoning his party were acting like lunatics, since ostensibly he wants to reconnect with them. It is also a smug position to take. To be fair to Frank, however, he does manage to place some blame on the Democrats for the mass exodus from their party. Frank is a big-government economic liberal who castigates centrist Democrats like Bill Clinton for blurring any clear difference between the parties on economic matters, a course of action that increasingly abandons traditional Democratic constituencies and makes the “cultural issues” more prominent in politics than they otherwise would be.

In Frank’s opinion the Democrats actually started moving rightward on economics in the mid 70’s. Since Frank acknowledges the longstanding economic similarity of the 2 parties, it becomes less than clear to me why Frank insists that Republican converts are irrationally acting against their economic interests. Perhaps Frank’s argument boils down to this: since the Democrats clearly used to be the party of the common man, and since the Republicans could never (in Frank’s opinion) be such a party, common people should keep voting Democrat, since this Party is their only potential home, and since Democratic politicians who read Frank’s book will see the light and connect with their former base by fighting through cultural smokescreens with a robust program of economic populism. (Alas for Frank, Obama has, in Frank’s opinion, proved yet another centrist disappointment. Although I don’t consider myself a Thomas Frank fan, I give Frank credit for sticking by his principles and refusing to worship Obama merely for gaining and retaining power for the Democrats.)

Frank’s argument relies on the disparagement of the Republican culture war. He does make some good points. Economic royalists often do exploit cultural issues for their own selfish reasons. Many cultural conservatives see liberal plots everywhere and do not seem to appreciate consumer capitalism’s role in debasing the culture. Republican deregulation-as in the case of radio- sometimes works against cultural conservative interests. And for all the effort expended, the culture war has born few tangible fruits. All this is true but not exhaustive. Frank does not reflect much on the fact that it takes two sides to fight a culture war, and that the Republicans were not the instigators of the conflict. Cultural politics are important to both parties, and Republican cultural politics are a response to cultural trends and policies that have been embraced by the Democrats: abortion rights, feminism, gay rights, multiculturalism/affirmative action. Frank seems to accept such “cultural liberalism” as a matter of course, as unproblematic as Mom and Apple Pie. He does not consider that others might view many Democratic policy positions as a form of cultural warfare waged against a traditional cultural consensus that, back in the Democratic Party’s heyday, members of both parties used to share. In fact, Frank just seems annoyed and bewildered that any sort of “cultural conservatism” should strive politically to make its influence felt at all. To take the abortion issue as an example, Frank seems unable to conjure up any real sympathy for a pro-life perspective, and wants to sweep the whole issue under the rug by dismissing political opposition to abortion as misguided because nothing short of a Supreme Court majority could ever overturn Roe v. Wade. But this is surely disingenuous. There are plenty of goals short of a complete overturn of Roe v. Wade that the pro-life crowd seeks to accomplish through the legislative process, and which the pro-choice crowd tries to stymie. And an overturning of Roe v. Wade would depend on getting enough judges “on board,” which would require conservative Republican Presidents in office to nominate them and a Senate conservative enough to confirm them. Democrats are well aware of all this, and they raise the abortion issue as a matter of practical politics just like Republicans do. What Frank really is saying to pro-lifers (and cultural conservatives in general) is this: Cultural views that I don’t share are unimportant, and you should stop caring about them-or at least stop acting upon your concerns-because your allegiance to cultural politics precludes you from supporting a political party that I do happen to care about and which really knows and will minister to your needs if only you stop all this silliness.

To me, Frank’s treatment of Republican cultural politics does not demonstrate the vacuity of such politics so much as it reveals the inability of liberal intellectuals like Frank to connect to voters for whom such cultural issues resonate. Frank can talk at these people but not to them.

Frank has a near mystical faith in the potential power of the Democrats to help the “common man.” However, the Democrats in power continually disappoint him with their centrist leanings, and Frank doesn’t seem to know how to speak to the concerns of those who have abandoned his Party. Democrats continue to laud his book, though I would imagine for Frank this is small consolation for his prolonged journey in the political wilderness.

Well-written, practically unputdownable description of how we got to where we are today, even though it's thirteen years old. This book really nails the attitudes of grievance-ridden people who consistently vote against their own best interests for government officials in the thrall of big corporations who care nothing about the quality of life of those who aren't rich too.

I think i finally figured out what eluded the author of "What's the Matter with Kansas?".
This author marveled at why poor and middle class kansasians consistently voted against their own economic interest by voting republican.
Human beings consistently need a purpose in their live - a passion. This purpose often is conflict with others.
Biologically the average person can only be mad about a small handful of issues at once - probably only one? In every country -:when a leader goes to war against another country, people forget their economic misfortunes and rally around the leader.

Take, for example flag burning.
Flag burning hurts no one. It is a minor issue that rarely if ever happens.
The news never explains how rare flag burning is. But people get infuriated and believe, wrongly, that flag burning is a major issue. Conservatives talk about this issue with like minded conservatives, forming stronger relationships because of this controversy.

This constant anger about social issues or war helps redirect a person's dissatisfaction from the wealthy and those in power. The economic elite take advantage of this system. Whether this is planned or not is irrelevant. This is what happens.

Kansas has followed the Reagan/Bush/Bush model with additional burdens added on to it's citizens. Now they have ridiculous SNAP rules. Don't get me wrong I also hate those who cheat their fellow citizens. Kansas has even taken evolution out of the schools. One shouldn't mendel with Mendel. No one is forcing anyone not to believe in G-d if you believe in evolution. I studied Mendel and Darwin in a private parochial school. No lightning has hit me. Then again if my state was to copy Kansas I hope lightning does strike me.

Clearly, sadly, and perhaps not surprisingly, most people in Kansas remain unaware of What's the Matter with Kansas. This book is mandatory reading for anyone who wonders what the heck is going on in the minds of the good working people of America's Red States. They vote on guns, gays, and God, and get nothing in return but deregulation and tax breaks for corporations and billionaires. Yet they go back and try again, and again, and again, electing the same charlatans over and over, somehow hoping for a different result. When they get angry about this, they turn to the Tea Party, where they get more of the same, only louder. The only thing that could prevent a dreary repetition at the polls in 2012 would be if free copies of this book were mailed out to every voter in the state.

This book was required reading for a government class that I attended. The content while disturbing was easy to understand and enlightening. The material has changed my perception of the political environment of the United States. While I understood that corruption existed it was not apparent just how corporations and politicians found the way to mislead people to vote against their best interests. The book will make you think and will lead you to a deeper understanding of the political process, I encourage each person that I encounter to read Whats the matter with Kansas if for no other reason it will lead an individual to research the issues rather than blindly following the rhetoric that is being shoved into the public view.

Why has Kansas, the hotbed of progressive fervor at the beginning of the 20th century, now become just as fervid toward "conservative" belief? Thomas Frank, raised in Kansas, tries to answer that question. Frank is a terrific and entertaining writer, who covers many of the "whats" of contemporary Kansas life - the closing down of farms in the face of Big Agra, the disintegration of neighborhoods and churches, and the development of super-elite gated communities that freeze out the less fortunate. He notes the number of highly-committed lower-middle-class conservative activists going door to door to sell their cause, while Mods - moderate, privileged Republicans (called "liberals" by their less-affluent brethren) - lament the diminishing quantity of civil discourse, all while racking in the tax benefits.

Frank identifies a number of factors motivating the change. For one, Republicans have clad themselves in the mantle of "authenticity" - the humility of salt-of-the earth Americans who farmed the land and toiled in the factories. Liberals are painted as elite, European snobs who supposedly look down on the common people. So far, the Repubs have ridden this horse to success in election after election, moving ordinary folks to vote against their own self-interest. When a vote for one's self-interest means a vote for a latte-sipping, tree-hugging, DC-dwelling snob, the voter turns to the other side, regardless of its platform or track record.

The sense of middle-class victimization is also high on Frank's list of what ails Kansas. Less-affluent Kansans tend to see themselves (correctly) as victims of larger forces. All they need is for someone to identify that force for them. And Republican leaders have obliged by pinning their troubles on big government. As long as people rant about BG, they don't notice the economic manipulations that are wrecking their neighborhoods, sickening their children and plunging them into debt.

"What's the Matter with Kansas" is a bit of a slow read. It is dispiriting to see people act as the agents of their own descent into debt and servitude. But these realities have to be identified before they can be combatted. And Frank's book is a step in the direction of making that change.

One of the most important books of the last fifty years on American politics. Democracy, in the hands of voters who have been tricked to vote against their own interests, is in real danger, and that danger seems to be far worse today.

Frank is a classic liberal, without great self-awareness. He will annoy many readers with his biases. Nonetheless, his analysis of the typical Kansas voter remains on-target in 2010. The typical Kansas voter is NOT joining the Scandinavian progressives in Wisconsin/Minnesota or aligning with the aging New Deal/union group in Kansas City or St. Louis. Some are following the individualist western/Colorado voter, while most are following the Texas/Oklahoma Baptist convention. As Frank notes, the historical class based loyalties are done. He attributes this to blue-collar ignorance rather than to growing middle class incomes and the appeal of classic individualistic American values. Frank clearly outlines how conservatives have redefined the political playing field, making cultural issues supreme for working and middle-class voters. He also outlines the highly effective conservative strategy of marginalizing high education, profession and income liberals. In the end, Frank does a good job of describing how conservatives have redefined the political playing field to their advantage. He does not have constructive advice for classic liberals or more recent third way, progressive centrists to advance their positions. Liberals and progressive centrists can use this analysis to understand their competition and attempt to reposition their policies in terms of both individual free enterprise and fairness, equity and justice.

As others have said, this is a wonderful book. It provides a useful outline of the reasons why Kansas is the solidly Republican state that it currently is. The book suffers (as has already been noted) from its own inability to answer the question it raises, namely why Kansans consistently vote against their own economic self-interest.

As a Kansan, I have no problem answering this question. So if you're interested, let me suggest 5 reasons.

a) economic self-interest is often not seen as the highest ideal in Kansas. This continues to confound Frank throughout this book. Yet in Kansas, many people see economic self-interest as matters of greed and selfishness, which are regarded as vices rather than virtues.

b) many Kansans also believe that it is not the government's job to solve individual economic problems, but it is the government's job to make murder (which is how they understand abortion) illegal.

c) there is a minimum of class consciousness in Kansas. Most people regard themselves as middle class, rather than poor, and thus are conditioned to think in terms of individual responsibility for their economic well being.

d) even among the poor, there is a strong sense of being poor but proud, poor but righteous. So they vote as righteous people rather than as poor people who need government assistance.

e) there is a strong but unspoken envy of the rich, so we think from the perspective of the wealthy.

I realize that some of these may seem to contradict others. We as Kansans are no more internally consistent than the rest of the world.

Hope this helps. So if the Democrats are interested in making a dent in Kansas politics, they need to speak the language that the people understand, rather than the language they think the people should speak.

What's the Matter with Kansas is an insightful book in examining why people, whose interests would seem to dictate a political persuasion of one side, are instead voting with the very interests they should be opposed to. That's the reason why the politics of Frank's native Kansas as well as the movement to the right among the lower and working classes seems so perplexing. To me the best part of the book is the examining of the history of politics in Kansas and how it has changed. That part of the book that drifts to the broader, more national observations of America's movement to the right is worth discussing, but causes the book to lose some of its potency, at least to me.

Its hard to imagine by looking at the political landscape today that Kansas was at one time a hotbed of radicalism or at least a state with more liberal propensities. This was the state that saw violent conflict between the Free-Soilers (those who moved in from the North) and the pro-slavery forces known as border ruffians from Missouri in the period just before the eruption of the Civil War. It was also a state that proved fertile territory for the Populist movement of the 1890s as well as other leftist groups in subsequent years. Within the last couple of decades, this state became enveloped by the far right and their cry of outrage over cultural issues like abortion, gays, liberalism in the media, the courts, government and etc.

Frank is effective in showing the reasons behind this transformation and the impact it has left. He's especially in tune with the seeming paradox that exists now in political associations in that those who really aren't terribly well to do and are suffering economically as a result of the runaway corporate power and greed that exists, are often supporting that very same corporate power and greed. I have found this hard to fathom as well. In Kansas, the Republican Party that dominates is divided between the Moderates (Mods as he terms them) and the Conservatives (Cons). And as Frank sees it, it is a class distinction.

It is the backlash, as Frank call it, that has caused this drastic change. It uses the tools of outrage over cultural issues, a sense of persecution at the hands of the liberal elite, etc., etc. Frank is on to something. And despite the fact that in recent years you have had more electoral victories for the far right and so would expect all these deplorable aspects of our culture to finally be resolved, the results don't bear this out. And despite this failure, as long as they preach the depravity of our culture and these liberal assaults on their values, they continue to get elected despite failing to deliver the goods. And as Frank states, they see no contradiction in their blind faith and praise of pure free-market capitalism and how that very system and those in it have in a way contributed to the issues that they so vociferously protested.

I could go on with the analysis in this book. Now some people will I'm sure be turned off by his partisan leanings and to be fair, there are extremists and intolerant folks in the Democratic Party as well as the Republican Party. Some will also no doubt say that there are many people who vote far right because of principles and Frank admits this as well. However, there are so many people who will allow a cultural issue or a feeling of outrage over a perceived persecution to trump all other issues that have so much more impact on their day to day lives. Frank's book is a valuable contribution to our understanding of this political movement seen in Kansas and in the country at large. An eye opener in many ways.

As a Political Science Major and Democrat, I was eager to try to understand what happened to all the loyal Democratic voters that had given control of Congress to Democrats for 40 years and then abruptly became Republicans. The author does an excellent job of explaining what happened. For many years after World War II, Democratic voters voted for the party that best represented their economic interests. During most of this time Democrats were seen as the party of labor and the middle class, which is why they stayed in power for so long. With the Democratic embrace of free trade in the 1990s, voters became very angry and alienated with the Democrats seemingly abandonment of their economic concerns, causing many of them began to listen to Republican pleas of 'family values' and 'moral character.' With no economic reason to stay with the Democrats, voters switched to Republicans who at least seemed to speak to their morality and values. Frank offers a number of narratives and statistics to support this theory. An excellent book for any Democrat who wants to know what happened to their party, and any Republican who wants to know how to stay in power!

The book raises interesting issues. But the big question I have is, why doesn't the Democratic party follow the obvious answer? Why don't Democrats address economic issues more favorable to the working class while following traditional cultural values. Example: Democrats supported the two right wing dragon-style bankruptcy squeezes, the one in 1998 which eliminated student loan bankruptcy as well as the current one which will require the poor to prove it with litigation. Both radical law changes would have been impossible with some Democrat backbone. Yet these examples of catering to the Republican core (rich persons still get to declare bankruptcy for their types of debt and keep their billion dollar houses,) went through with the cooperation of Democrats.

If it can be said that the Republicans are performing smoking mirror tricks with the economy by trotting out the old cultural divide-- why are Democrats going along with it? The Democrats gave us a choice between tweedle dee and tweedle dumber. One skull and bones member versus another! No wonder they lost. The Republican ads which featured Kerry changing his mind with the blowing of the wind were successful because they rang true-- not for missed subtle nuances. And I am hardly a member of the vast right wing conspiracy. Democrats need to stand up for something. The Reagan revolution won, because like him or not, Reagan meant something to people just as FDR meant something to people before him.

Is it impossible to give us a candidate who believes in progressive economics while being cognizant of middle America's social positions? "Abortions cheaper by the dozen" is as much as a silly sine qua non for the current Democrat leadership as "homosexuals are leading to teenage pregancy" is for the Republicans. Why do Democrats play the game as loosers? Maybe because they have wanted to? They are cut from the same sails as the Republicans, and want the ship to come in-- for the upper class.

This book could be a wake up call or a death knell for the Democrat party. As I recall, the Republican party was pretty battered and bruised before it started getting its act together. If you count the number of years after the Nixon impeachment before Republicans regrouped and the number of years after the Clinton impeachment-- it probably won't be much longer before Democrats get going again.

"What's the Matter with Kansas?" would be better titled "What the [Heck] is the Matter with America?" In his book, Thomas Frank uses Kansas as a microcosm of the current political climate. Not only are the political trends of Kansas frightening, but the trends of the whole county are alarming.

When did the real issues stop mattering? Some time in the last thirty years, momentum shifted away from important issues such as economics and fiscal responsibility. Equal distribution of wealth gave way to a new generation of robber barons. As democrats became labeled out-of-touch elitists, the advantage of the democratic party withered. When the republicans decried themselves as religious, pious, and working for the common man, they became the people's party. Republicans declared themselves martyrs of a liberal conspiracy against Christians as they accused liberals of removing nativity scenes and promoting legal gay marriage. Any Christian should be angry about this alleged conspiracy. But as the republicans took office, religious issues and the common man's standard of living took a back seat to rolling back business regulations that aid the wealthy. Did the Bush tax cut really help anybody?

The democrats are the other part of the problem. They have lost touch with the working class trying to connect with business. The problem is the party of the working class lost touch with the working class. Instead they focused on being moderate, claiming to be Christian, and defending against republican slander. The result is the landslide failure of John Kerry and the democrats in 2004.

Frank's solution is a democratic return to working class/economic issues. The republican's lack of progress over Bush's five years speaks for itself. Between jobs, gas prices, and standard of living, we are not better off than we were when Bush took office. The democrats may never beat the republicans on religious issues because of the support republicans receive from the religious right. As a Christian, I take exception to the idea that the republicans are God's chosen party. But democrats must halt the preception that they are the party of America's misfits. The moment a republican brings up the issue, a democrat may be forced to defend an unpopular view. Change the topic to a genuine campaign issue. Legalizing gay marriage or banning abortion are items a president can not directly affect. Keep the republicans on the issues that a politician can effect. It's the economy stupid! Don't let the cable news networks think for you! Look at the facts.

This book disturbed me deeply. It left me feeling very anxious and discouraged over the future of our country's political discourse, and as a consequence of this, our ability to meet the challenges of the future with any form of unity. If Frank's thesis is correct, the politically biting environment we are currently engendering bodes omminously for the future of our republic.

The thesis of Frank's book is that Republicans have convinced the low to middle class to vote for them on the basis of social issues, without taking into consideration the conservatives own elitism and the fact that conservatives are eager to pillage the individual for the sake of the corporation, the market, or something as naked as the acquisition of money. Frank's book will no doubt be rightly hailed as a prophetic work; my question is whether or not anyone on the other side of the aisle is capable of responding to the Republicans' strategic execution of a well engineered political plan, and whether or not average citizens are going to encourage our politicians to attempt and become more than talking heads.

Another fine political book from the author of THE WRECKING CREW. In this book Frank uses what has happened in Kansas as a possible political outcome for the rest of the country. It seems that Conservative Republicans have captured the flag within the Republican party in Kansas and in most other areas of the country, and now things are just shifting to the Right, and then, farther to the Right. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has rejected their traditional base (union members, the poor, and the idealistic), and have sucked up to corporate interests (Business Friendly!!). The Cons have successfully focused every issue around Non Winnable Cultural Issues such as , Abortion, Gun Control, "Filth In General". And, much to the dismay of Intelligent America (the half dozen of us that are left), it looks like America is willing to sacrifice everything in order to pursue the fantasy of Red State middle-American righteousness regardless of the economic fallout.

Tom Franks book "What's the Matter With Kansas" is interesting reading. It takes up the dilemma that democrats face in 21st century. That dilemma involves dealing with middle and working class people who formerly considered themselves democrats, but have left the party because of opposition to abortion, gay rights, or one of the other so-called "social issues". Unless the party can find a way to persuade some of these voters to rejoin its ranks than republicans may hold the presidency and congress for years to come.

The situation in Kansas is illustrative of what has occurred. Some of the poorest counties in the state vote more consistently for conservative republican candidates than the wealthiest areas do. Its exactly the reverse of a trend that began in the 1930's with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the "New Deal". In those days, the poor voted virtually unanimously for democrats and the wealthy were nearly as unanimous in their support of republican candidates.

What exactly has happened? My major criticism of Franks' book is that he is long on description (often in very hyperbolic manner), but short on explanation. Franks suggests at one point that the democrats have shown less and less interest in economic issues in the last 15 years and as a result, working class and lower middle class supporters increasingly cannot see the difference between them and the republicans. Perhaps, its true the democrats under Clinton supported NAFTA and other free trade agreements which may have caused the loss of some jobs in America's heartland.

Its not a bad book, but it could have been shorter. Franks made his essential points in two or three chapters and the rest is pretty repetitious.