
Thomas Frank was born in Kansas City, Missouri and grew up in Mission Hills, Kansas, a fact he discusses in this book. As far as his political leanings, he started out as a Republican in college, but he won’t end his run that way. His books, which include 2016’s Listen, Liberal and 2020’s The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism were well-received. He theorizes that the Democratic Party lost its progressive, populist spirit in the 20th century and has yet regain it. But 2004’s What’s the Matter with Kansas? was the one that made Frank a sensation. Its ideas became conventional wisdom when discussing how Democrats lost the working class.
As Frank points out, Kansas was once a reliable bastion of the left. It’s where John Brown once did his righteous work, carving a swath of justice and spilling the blood of pro-slavery fighters. It’s a heartland state historically filled with farmers, radicals, fanatics and entrepreneurs. That makes it American as hell. At one point in time, it was a hotbed of support for the Populist Party. Populists opposed organized money and corporate power in the 19th and early 20th century. They hated elites, and elites hated them right back.
And yet over the decades, the power of Populists was (sometimes violently) wiped away. The Democratic Party took the mantle of working-class agitation. They did so, inconsistently and imperfectly, for a time. But its heyday was during the New Deal Coalition that rebuilt this country after the Great Depression, and that was a very long time ago. Kansas Democrats now find themselves in a vary different position. The state is now heavily, almost ironclad conservative in its leanings. What changed? Frank calls out the “Great Backlash” as the culprit. He uses that term to describe how many in America felt when reacting to the civil rights and social movements of the 1960s. By exploiting this cultural backlash, and the racist “law and order” politics that came with it, conservative Republicans made huge gains in the Midwest and South. That same backlash energy is still directed toward Democrats. Now, they’re portrayed as corrupt, out-of-touch elites and snobs as well as cultural degenerates.
That perception’s not entirely unearned. Also crucial to this trend is the Democratic Party’s own actions, Frank argues. This is one of the most persuasive parts of the book, and it lines up with other sources I’ve read over the last decade. I’m talking in particular about the Clinton-era shift in Democratic priorities away from workers and toward free-market, limited-government ideas as part of neoliberalism. In subscribing to this anti-New Deal ideology, Dems created a consensus with Republicans. Without bold economic plans from the left to fight for, Democrats made a move toward the center as Republicans moved rightward. This just brought everyone in the country further right. On that remaining cultural spot of turf, the Dems will always seem weak. The GOP will too often seem authentic, righteous and moral.
What‘s the Matter With Kansas? shares how this transformation affected Kansas politics, economy and culture. Most of the history given is perfectly relevant to Frank’s argument, and pretty compelling. Granted, there’s only so much I really want to know about the dynamics of Kansas’ economy and the makeup of Kansas City’s suburbs. This book goes well past that line on both counts, but it still functions as a clear microcosm for what happened in many other parts of the country. Frank is witty, clear, and never forgets his central argument. He goes in for the kill by illuminating the consequences that participating in the Great Backlash has had on Kansas. It’s suffered suburban sprawl, a loss of union membership and a decline in worker pay and benefits. Add to that list a near-permanent budget crisis caused by tax cuts. These have been so painful on the state government that it can barely function. Backlash conservatives justify it because they support the social issues promoted by the GOP. This is per the terms of the alliance their wealthy supporters made with cultural conservatives decades earlier. It means God in schools, guns in hand, gays in their place. It involves black and brown Americans under scrutiny, and abortion providers all but extinct in the state.
This may be from 2004, but it’s a crucial guide to understanding the makings of the modern Republican Party. In it, we also see precursors to the Tea Party and MAGA movements. It also highlights an anti-worker trend in the Democratic Party. That trend is ineffective, unhealthy, and only now starting to lose its dominant position due to the efforts of progressive populist and “democratic socialist” political actors like Bernie Sanders and the Squad.
What's the Matter with Kansas? - How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
A brilliant history of how populism and working class currents in the Democratic Party died, while evangelical and wealthy conservatives rushed in to fill the void with cultural backlash politics ...
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