Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #312768 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Customer Reviews

Candid Kansas
Take a trip to the political section of a US bookstore and you throw yourself into the middle of the battle raging between left and right. Who is a big fat idiot? Who is destroying America? Who buys Ann Coulter? Like all things polemics are not created equal. Some books simply exist to affirm the prejudice of the reader, and thus the liberal will chuckle along to Michael Moore and Al Franklin, and the conservative will nod solemnly to Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly. Some seem to be more reasoned, such as Molly Ivins. This is where Thomas Frank's new books comes in.

What's The Matter With Kansas is clearly hollering from the left side of the fence. The title alone betrays the fact that the author thinks there is something 'wrong' with the state of Kansas continually voting Republican. What is novel and refreshing is that he tries to explain why a state that is overwhelmingly blue collar or rural would vote for the party that seems to betray those interests.

It comes down to an interesting contrast. Social and economics issues have somewhat gone out of the window in an increasingly prosperous and financially secure USA. Instead the moral agenda has seized the upper hand, and this has gripped the hearts of the voters of what was once a radical state. Instead of worker protection, minimum wages and New Deal farm reforms the voters support evangelical churches, anti-abortion and shudder at the prospect of gay marriage. All of this is fertile ground for an increasingly conservative Republican party.

Thomas Frank portrays his home state with a degree of empathy that would be lacking in the tomes written by those 'east cost, latte sipping liberals'. Like Ivins's love for her home state of Texas, Frank does not necessarily suggest that the voters in Kansas are stupid or ignorant. He does, however, suggest that they are strongly voting against their own interests in support of the rabidly conservative aims of the moral wing.

His platform would suggest that today's Republican party has formed a quid pro quo arrangement with the christian coalition, support for the big business and low taxes goes hand in hand with policies to affirm the moral basis of America. It is ironic that the two form such easy bed fellows. The rapacious excesses of WorldCom, Enron and other corporate scandals are evidenced by Frank, and sit uneasily with Christian principles.

But then again I am even worse than an east coast, latte sipping liberal. I'm practically a pinko Commie from Europe!

Economic Populism vs. Cultural Populism
Very well-written account of how Kansas used to be a hotbed of left-wing radicalism that has been seduced into the Republican fold through the use of accusations of 'cultural elitism' against 'liberals' and 'Democrats'. He goes onto advocate the use of economic populism to take on this cultural populism of the Right, and makes 'liberal' use of the example of William Jennings Bryan.

Overall, a very good read and highly recommended although he does a poor job of saying whether this economic populism would be desirable in and of itself rather than as a political ploy: rather than having a go at NAFTA, would it not be more sensible to help poor people adapt to the creative destruction of open markets, as suggested in The Pro-growth Progressive by Gene Sperling? Does Economic nationalism induce a broader less tasteful nativism? There is also the small matter that most Democrats who have run on an economically populist ticket have lost: Bob Shrum ran Al Gore's 'People Against the Powerful' campaign, and several similarly-themed previously, and none have won.

However, regardless of the book's shortcomings in terms of prescription, it's description of political life in Kansas is as necessary as it is compelling: what the Republicans are doing is working, but we need to find a cure that is not as bad as the illness.