When this book first appeared in 2004, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" was hailed as a powerful explanation of the political divide present in the early twenty-first century United States. Journalist Thomas Frank, who grew up in the upper-middle class suburbs of Kansas City, explores how a state renowned for agrarian radicalism in the latter nineteenth century, to say nothing of socialist ideals in the early twentieth, became a bastion of conservatism by the turn of the twenty-first. His answer, cultural and values politics rather than economic politics have dominated the current political scene. Written in a breezy style, it will not satisfy scholars but it nonetheless presents a compelling introduction to the current political divisions of the United States.
Frank begins by asking a simple question, why do people vote against their economic interests? The Republican Party, he notes, has a penchant for big business, lessening regulations, and a diminution of the social programs that defined politics from the New Deal to the Great Society. The genius of the conservative movement, and the reason for its success, required a draining of the quest for economic justice that had dominated that earlier effort from the political agenda. Conservatives replaced it with values and cultural issues that attracted working class voters. The centerpiece of this was the anti-abortion issue, but it also included symbols of patriotism such as flag burning and the Pledge of Allegiance, the sanctity of marriage and whether it should be extended to gays, the stories told of American history, religious conceptions and their legitimacy in the public sphere, and the science behind evolution and other issues that some find uncomfortable.
At its core, the values agenda advanced by the Republicans allowed the party to capture beginning in the 1980s all three branches of U.S. government and to rule with virtually no coordinated and effective opposition as the twenty-first century began. To be successful, they had to divorce all of these issues from the economic ones with which Republicans are so often identified and to motivate voters to support their values agenda despite the economic measures also a part of the Republican political effort.
Ironically, while making considerable noise about cultural values and hot-button issues, the Republican majorities have done almost nothing to reverse the policies that motivated voters to send majorities of Republicans to Washington in the first place. This may well be, one of the great mysteries of current American politics. At the time this book was published, the Republicans had controlled the House of Representatives for ten years, and all three branches of government since January 2003. Even so, no major legislation had been passed to reverse the situation that values voters abhorred. Most importantly, nothing had been done to reverse a woman's right to chose whether or not to have a baby. This was the most volatile social issue and the one which Thomas Frank and others believe should have been on the top of the Republican agenda. The fact nothing substantive has changed is because of a series of rifts within the Republican Party as it fights internally over agenda-setting. At some level, co-opting the values voters, according to Frank, was a Machiavellian ploy to gain the votes necessary to take control of the U.S. government. Thereafter, the party ruled in the interest of its big business constituency, and in the process stabbed at least twice the constituency of values voters by not enacting the measures they advocated even as they harmed them with their economic policies.
This is an important book that deserves consideration. It is, of course, a journalistic account of the current political divisions of the United States. It is overwhelmingly anecdotal, and far from a systematic analytical work, but it is also suggestive and provocative. There is every reason to believe it will be referenced in the on-going political analyses of the twenty-first century.
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The answer is biological
I think i finally figured out what eluded the author of "What's the Matter with Kansas?".This author marveled at why poor and middle class kansasians consistently voted against their own economic interest by voting republican.Human beings consistently need a purpose in their live - a passion. This purpose often is conflict with others.Biologically the average person can only be mad about a small handful of issues at once - probably only one? In every country -:when a leader goes to war against another country, people forget their economic misfortunes and rally around the leader.Take, for example flag burning.Flag burning hurts no one. It is a minor issue that rarely if ever happens.The news never explains how rare flag burning is. But people get infuriated and believe, wrongly, that flag burning is a major issue. Conservatives talk about this issue with like minded conservatives, forming stronger relationships because of this controversy.This constant anger about social issues or war helps redirect a person's dissatisfaction from the wealthy and those in power. The economic elite take advantage of this system. Whether this is planned or not is irrelevant. This is what happens.
Top reviews from other countries
Santiago Vélez
Muy interesante explicación de la reacción (backlash ) de los EEUU
Reviewed in Spain on January 20, 2017
