What's the matter with Kansas?

how conservatives won the heart of America

by Thomas Frank

306 pages

English language

Published Nov. 8, 2004 by Metropolitan Books.

ISBN:: 978-0-8050-7339-3

(12 reviews)

One of "our most insightful social observers"* cracks the great political mystery of our time: how conservatism, once a marker of class privilege, became the creed of millions of ordinary Americans

With his acclaimed wit and acuity, Thomas Frank turns his eye on what he calls the "thirty-year backlash"—the populist revolt against a supposedly liberal establishment. The high point of that backlash is the Republican Party's success in building the most unnatural of alliances: between blue-collar Midwesterners and Wall Street business interests, workers and bosses, populists and right-wingers.

One of "our most insightful social observers"* cracks the great political mystery of our time: how conservatism, once a marker of class privilege, became the creed of millions of ordinary Americans

In asking "what 's the matter with Kansas?"—how a place famous for its radicalism became one of the most conservative states in the union—Frank, a native Kansan and onetime Republican, seeks to answer some broader American riddles: Why do so many of us vote against our economic interests? Where's the outrage at corporate manipulators? And whatever happened to middle-American progressivism? The questions are urgent as well as provocative. Frank answers them by examining pop conservatism—the bestsellers, the radio talk shows, the vicious political combat—and showing how our long culture wars have left us with an electorate far more concerned with their leaders' "values" and down-home qualities than with their stands on hard questions of policy.

A brilliant analysis—and funny to boot—What's the Matter with Kansas? presents a critical assessment of who we are, while telling a remarkable story of how a group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs came to convince a nation that they spoke on behalf of the People.

*Los Angeles Times

2 editions

jellybeyreads reviewed What's the Matter With Kansas? by Thomas Frank

Review of "What's the matter with Kansas?" on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Definitely entertaining- couldn't put it down. But this is a book for the converted. Frank assumes the reader is familiar with the economic policies of both the Dems and the GOP from the 1920s onward and, armed with this knowledge, is anti-corporate and supports at least minimally socialist policy. From this starting point, Frank argues that the Dems have abandoned the language of populism while the GOP have taken it up, which wins working class voters to the party of the WASP because lots of people vote based on populist rhetoric, because they don't know about economic policy; but this is not in their political or economic interest (or in the interest of the country as a whole, he clearly feels).

But there, exactly, is the problem: for someone who resents the American lack of economic awareness and blames it for the shift toward conservatism, it's a huge weakness to assume, in a pop-politics book, that his readership has the economic awareness that he spends 250 pages arguing the average American doesn't have.

Here's what this book does well: quick overview of Kansas history. Stories about important Kansans past and present. Stories about conservative nuts like Ann Coulter (who has burned herself out in the wider culture, by the time I read this in 2010) and Pope Michael I of Kansas.

Here's how it could be so much better: history of Democrats and Republicans, from their inception to present, including party positions on major policy issues both economic and social. Prove (not just assume) that socialist leaning economic policy is better for the majority of Americans. Prove that anti-choice policy on abortion coupled with no realistic sex education is socially harmful (for all he talks about abortion, he never does give any reason why we should prefer the pro-choice position).

Yes, it would be weightier. But he might actually win over some of the people on the fence, and it would give the already-converted-but-maybe-not-fully-informed-and-isn't-that-why-we-are-reading-this-book-in-the-first-place-to-get-more-informed potentially new and useful material to argue with. As it is, it's kind of a self congratulatory wankfest. But a very interesting (and accurate, despite all his best efforts to thwart academic rigor) one.