by Thomas Frank
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Product Description
With a New Afterword by the Author
The New York Times bestseller, praised as "hilariously funny . . . the only way to understand why so many Americans have decided to vote against their own economic and political interests" (Molly Ivins)
Hailed as "dazzlingly insightful and wonderfully sardonic" (Chicago Tribune), "very funny and very painful" (San Francisco Chronicle), and "in a different league from most political books" (The New York Observer), What's the Matter with Kansas? unravels the great political mystery of our day: Why do so many Americans vote against their economic and social interests? With his acclaimed wit and acuity, 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 participants in the culture wars. Charting what he calls the "thirty-year backlash"-the popular revolt against a supposedly liberal establishment-Frank reveals how conservatism, once a marker of class privilege, became the creed of millions of ordinary Americans.
A brilliant analysis-and funny to boot-What's the Matter with Kansas? is a vivid portrait of an upside-down world where blue-collar patriots recite the Pledge while they strangle their life chances; where small farmers cast their votes for a Wall Street order that will eventually push them off their land; and where a group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs has managed to convince the country that it speaks on behalf of the People.
Amazon.com Review
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
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 "Like a French Revolution in reverse --...", 2009-01-02
...one in which the sans-culottes pour down the streets demanding more power for the aristocracy.....". As we survey the shambles of the American economy, bracing for the inevitable hard times, in which we just might have more time to read books, few are more essential in providing an explanation as to how it all happened than Thomas Frank's excellent analysis. Frank starts his book with a stunning fact: the poorest county in the United States is not in Appalachia or the Deep South; it is in the High Plains of Western Nebraska- McPherson County, and 80% of the electorate there voted for George Bush in 2000. Frank focuses on his home state of Kansas, a literal metaphor for the heart of America. He describes how the many voted against their economic self-interest, distracted by "social issues" such as gay marriage, abortion, guns, et al. In doing so, as Frank says in the subject quote, it was like turning the French revolution on its head, permitting a vast increase in the share of the national wealth by the top 1%, while the rest, the 99%, contented themselves with the crumbs, the "trickle down" that fell from the table. As he succinctly puts it in the first chapter: "Cultural anger is marshaled to achieve economic ends." And the result: "Over the last three decades they (the backlash leaders) have smashed the welfare state, reduced the tax burden on corporations and the wealthy, and generally facilitated the country's return to a nineteenth-century pattern of wealth distribution."
Frank's work is a polemic, in the best sense of the word. His style is "punchy", hard-hitting, with numerous memorable statements. Much of his animus is directed towards the "aristocracy's" propaganda machine, whether it be the "fair and balanced" Fox News channel, or the only slightly more genteel rationalizations of David Brooks in the New York Times. As Frank says about these propaganda efforts which obscure the reality of this enormous transfer of wealth to the few: "The erasure of the economic is a necessary precondition for most of the basic backlash ideas. It is only possible to think that the news is slanted to the left, for example, if you don't take into account who owns the news organizations..."(p128). And later, "One source of conservatism's considerable power, as noted, is its airtight explanation of reality, its ability to make sense of the average person's disgruntlement while exempting laissez-faire capitalism from any culpability." (p162). There is no question that the few have reaped enormous returns by funding this most effective propaganda machine, and Frank correctly identifies its star practitioners: Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, David Brooks. Frank does focus on his native Kansas, knows his history, and shows how the Right killed much of the Populist tradition of the state that at one time would not have been fooled by these snake-oil salesmen.
So where are we now, in the era of "the God that Failed," as the "markets" have clearly done so, in which the "get government off our backs" crowd are the first ones in line for a government handout? Will America's "Pravda" be successful in disconnecting the current economic catastrophe from the laissez-faire policies and the people who advocated them? Can they portray it as a natural event, like a hurricane or an earthquake? Will the harsh reality of trillions of dollars of additional debt, and the possible collapse of our currency, lead to a revival of the true populist tradition, and some of the money aggrandized by the few reclaimed? Frank's latest book, "The Wrecking Crew," is in the tradition of "Kansas." Hopefully he is collecting material now for another book, to be published in a year or two which will describe how successful, or not, America's Lords and Ladies were in playing the shell game of distracting the attention of the masses from their economic theft. Clearly Round One went to the L&L, as a trillion dollars went to the banks and Wall Street while the media focused on the "chump change" provided the auto makers.
Frank is the consummate political analyst of our day, "Kansas" is an essential read for those desiring to know how the few pulled it off.
0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
 Either Way You're Screwed, 2008-12-28
How can anyone in America still believe that either party, Republican OR Democratic, is going to help Joe Average? Cultural issues will always trump economic issues in our national elections not because "ignorant" middle America is being duped by Republicans, but because middle America is smarter than the author thinks: they know that when it comes to economics, either party is sure to take them for a ride. The only differences between the two parties are the social and cultural perspectives of each. Otherwise - and especially regarding economic issues - there's not a dime's worth of difference between them.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
there is a lot wrong with Kansas, 2008-12-01
Author explores how Kansas has been dumbed down enough to vote against their own interest. The big media will shove footage of two female pop stars kissing at an awards ceremony: The folks in Kansas will vote to lower their taxes and the taxes of the media executives.
How did Americans get so gullible? the way people communicate eventually changes the way they think and process information. progressive populism arose when many small town farmers, small town merchants, and small town mill workers communicated in person and by local newspapers.
Whatever else was involved, the results are the same. We now have a population that can be steered into voting for whichever candidate gives the most lip service to not liking gays, abortion, consumers of hip hop, or "taxes". They then vote for rich people who cut their own taxes and raise payroll taxes on most people, outsource manufacturing jobs, subsidize agricultural policies that drive most farmers out of business, and flood the air waves with lowest common denominator trash consumerism.
Kansas conservatives just may succeed in getting abortion outlawed some day. by then they will have to sell themselves into indentured servitude just to pay the cost of having a baby born at a hospital. Congratulations.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Spot on Analysis, 2008-10-24
As somebody who grew up in Kansas and then subsequently moved to New York, I can honestly say that Thomas Frank accurately captures the ideology prevalent in Kansas when it comes to national politics, the narrow minded scope of political understanding there, and the reasons why folks in midwestern states like Kansas are easily misled by the Republican party into literally voting against their own economic interests in the name of "values."
0 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
After paying, never received it!!!!!!, 2008-10-14
I'm very disappointed! After paying for it to be sent from a seller in the marketplace (bordee books), I have not received it and the seller is (in my opinion) giving me a hard time about getting me a copy of it. Their solution was to "wait and see if it comes. Get back to us in a week or so." If it was possible, I would give ZERO stars! Think twice about using this seller!
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