What's the matter with Kansas?
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. 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?
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What Hacker News says
- I recently read “What’s the matter with Kansas” by Thomas Frank. It was eye-opening. One things he mentioned is that as both Democratic and Republican parties aligned on economic issues (I.e., Democrats started working for rich), social issues became distinguishing factors and gained prominence.
- I recently read one of the best descriptions of why middle of the road, non wealthy voters went for Trump in the book "The King in Orange," a book about the "magickal" aspects of the 2016 campaign by John Michael Greer, the former (?) head of the Ancient Order of Druids in America.
I expect cogent commentary about ritual magick by a Druid, but was a little surprised to find well laid out political commentary. I guess that was a failure of my imagination. Worth a read, even if you consider the topic bollocks. Greer sticks mostly to psychology and musings about using metaphor to engineer the mass imagination. Much less woo-woo than you might expect.
I mention it in support of the previous poster's commentary about the Dems messaging being irrelevant to most Americans. Seemed to me middle America doesn't love Trump as much as they weren't able to hear Harris address any issues they were concerned about.
I can recommend The King in Orange, What's the Matter with Kansas and Metaphors We Live By for more musings about such things.
- You should read "What's the Matter with Kansas?" by Thomas Frank [1] that discusses this topic at length. Yes, I do think it works: It is possible to persuade people to vote against their material or economic self-interest by inflaming passions around simple, emotionally charged "hot-button" topics that are easy for most voters to understand and react to instinctively.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-Ame...
- It's the same story over and over again with large businesses. See Boeing and WA state as well.
What's the Matter with Kansas? (2004) by Thomas Frank goes into this in part of it. While a bit repetitive (because history) the book is quite good.
- If you're interested in some reflection on that, What's the Matter with Kansas? (2004) by Thomas Frank explores some of this, but centered around Kansas. Pretty interesting (and frustrating) stuff.
- Inner cities often see escalated violent crime compared to rural and suburban areas. However I can't find a source suggesting inner city minorities are single issue voter for gun control.
I did find several where minorities refused to vote GOP due to racism and related issues but I'd consider that decency not single issue.
Meanwhile I can list my Grandma's entire church as mostly single issue related to abortion rights, or at least that's what the current leadership preaches.
By voting against their interest, I'm considering that the GOP has had platform planks, policy options, or new laws/rules related to reducing farm subsides, setting up tariffs that bring counter actions that destroy entire US farming groups, refuse to acknowledge climate change is real let alone human driven, curtailing regulations around safe pesticides or environmental efforts in general, and reducing rural outreach like cuts to USPS, voting access, and more.
It seems odd that a group of often rural and farm related folks would vote for a party that has succeeded in reducing their subsidies, axing their crop values internationally via revenge tariffs, refusing to acknowledge why droughts are sweeping the nation and doing nothing to counter them, and reducing their access to mail and levers of democracy would be against their core interests.
But hey, the rich have lower taxes and the poor can't get healthcare, jobs, retirement, home ownership, and the chances of preventing massive droughts and climate change related issues are nil so all is right for the GOP.
What's the Matter with Kansas is a deeper look into the Kansas aspects of this. It's an interesting read and very relevant as just back in 2016 they tried to ax taxes across the state and schools closed, hospitals started to shut down, roads fell apart, and more until the state supreme court ordered the legislature to fund basic services and the GOP dominated state legislature had to override the governors veto to pass higher taxes. At this point, cutting taxes seems to be the biggest right wing driver apart from protecting Trump.
Of course, if the GOP gets into office then floods you with more subsidies because their actions would otherwise destroy your entire national industry, perhaps its more about selfish people being selfish than voting against their interests. If US farmers didn't have tariffs shredding their markets and driving demand to Brazil and other nations, maybe they wouldn't need more bailout money than the US auto sector in 2009. So far I think they are up to about 2x the auto bailout but that was a year ago.
So much for person responsibility and fiscally conscious conservatives. The deficit hasn't mattered since Obama left office apparently.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/21/trump-teases-more-t...
https://www.freep.com/story/money/business/john-gallagher/20...
