Books and
Cooks West
April 2006
What's the Matter with Kansas?
by Thomas Frank
What's the Matter with
Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
Thomas Frank
Michele's place
Saturday, April 8 at 5:30 PM
Our rating: 3.5 cups of tea!
From Amazon.com
The largely blue collar citizens of Kansas can be counted upon to be a
"red" state in any election, voting solidly Republican and possessing a
deep animosity toward the left. This, according to author Thomas Frank,
is a pretty self-defeating phenomenon, given that the policies of the
Republican Party benefit the wealthy and powerful at the great expense
of the average worker. According to Frank, the conservative
establishment has tricked Kansans, playing up the emotional touchstones
of conservatism and perpetuating a sense of a vast liberal empire out
to crush traditional values while barely ever discussing the
Republicans' actual economic policies and what they mean to the working
class. Thus the pro-life Kansas factory worker who listens to Rush
Limbaugh will repeatedly vote for the party that is less likely to
protect his safety, less likely to protect his job, and less likely to
benefit him economically. To much of America, Kansas is an abstract,
"where Dorothy wants to return. Where Superman grew up." But Frank, a
native Kansan, separates reality from myth in What's the Matter with Kansas and
tells the state's socio-political history from its early days as a
hotbed of leftist activism to a state so entrenched in conservatism
that the only political division remaining is between the moderate and
more-extreme right wings of the same party. Frank, the founding editor
of The Baffler and a
contributor to Harper's and The Nation, knows the state and its
people. He even includes his own history as a young conservative
idealist turned disenchanted college Republican, and his first-hand
experience, combined with a sharp wit and thorough reasoning, makes his
book more credible than the elites of either the left and right who
claim to understand Kansas. --John Moe
