Thomas Frank makes a good deal of sense if one can listen long enough to hear his thesis. But he is his own worst enemy, providing story after statistic to describe Kansas voting for conservatives against their own best interests. His arguments are extreme and unsettling. You’d think Kansas was the most unholy place on earth with pollution, unemployment, and immigrant slave labor, but actually conservatives have only slowly been crushing the lifeblood out of the state. This last election voted 6...

This book is fascinating, but I also expect will be debunked by most Kansans. I'm not a Kansan, but my husband is, and I lived there for 15 years plus four years of undergraduate experience. One of my two sons was born in Kansas; both of them were raised there. The author is a Kansan, ergo, giving him more credibility in addition to his massive research. This is a meticulously detailed tome that demonstrates that it us true conservatives consistently vote against their own self interests, includ...

Holy cow I hated this book.This was really an unpleasant experience, I’m glad it’s over. I read the book because I am moving to Kansas and figured it would be a useful introduction to the state’s political dynamic. I was expecting an analysis that I would likely not be very sympathetic to, but I was still disappointed. The book is not so much analysis as explanation -- explanation as to what is going on in flyover country, from the perspective of a committed, doctrinaire, old school liberal. The...

Posits the existence of a “Great Backlash,” a derangement that is the return of “a style of conservatism that first came snarling onto the national stage in response to the partying and protests of the late sixties” (5). It is apparently “like the French Revolution in reverse” (8): “sans culottes pour down the streets demanding more power for the aristocracy.” The central problem: Strip them of their job security, and they head out to become registered Republicans. Push them off their land, and

"Vote to strike a blow against elitism; receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our lifetimes, in which workers have been stripped of power and CEOs are rewarded in a manner beyond imagining.” ― Thomas Frank, What's the Matter With Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of AmericaIt is not just Kansas that is discussed here. It is a book that really offers some serious insightinto different parts of the country and why we all vote as we do.Alot of books

Although my political views are left of center, I approached this book with great curiosity and an open mind. I was hoping to understand what makes a group of people vote against their own political and economic interests. However, I didn't come away from this book really learning the answer to that question. Mr. Frank, a native Kansan, wrote a very interesting book about his very colorful home state. He talked about conservative voters voting their values.... I understand that. I feel I vote u

I learned early on that reading the opinion pages of the newspaper was just spitting into the wind. You get so fed up to the point that you have to do something about it, and then you end up making it worse. Much of "What's the Matter with Kansas" was a play-by-play rehashing of the news stories that have helped make Kansas the laughing stock of the nation. While I find Frank's concept of "cultural backlash" interesting, it still doesn't answer the question of "why do rural people continue to el...

I know this is supposed to be a great book, but, as a Kansan, I had a hard time getting past Thomas Frank's apparent bitterness about all things Kansas. Its an interesting assessment as to how Kansas got so Red. However, things have been changing significantly in this state over the last few elections so its no longer very insightful about the current state of Kansas politics.

In the last year I’ve started on a half a dozen books all claiming to explain the marriage of social conservatism and capitalism, this being the second I’ve actually managed to finish (the others written either by some criminally insane conservative whose lunatic ravings caused me to vomit in my mouth by page five or liberals whose smug sense of superiority was palpable.) This one at least was enjoyable, I suppose, yet somewhere about a third of the way in I realized the utter pointlessness of e...

Hating this book would be like hating cancer: Raging won't make it go away or succor those who have been damaged by it.But it is well worth repeating the fact that this is a deeply stupid book, smug and vicious and unapologetic on both counts.To say that Frank is preaching to the choir is insulting to preachers, who by and large seem sincerely interested in persuading their charges, and choirs, who by and large seem to sing from a place of joy and compassion. Rather, Frank begins with a hateful

Eh. I don't know about this one. I think it has some good points and insights as to how people living in middle America see the conservative movement as relating to their self interest even when decisions made by that movement are somewhat against their self interest. At the same time I feel like this analysis "others" middle America and assumes something is "the matter" with Kansas as opposed to assuming that perhaps something is wrong with progressive messaging that is not connecting with many...

A scathing polemic diatribe, this book discusses how the conservatives have won the hearts and minds of a state which, by any of the author's yardsticks, ought to vote liberal. Frank is preaching to choir with me. However, even as I sit on his side of the fence, I could not help but fault this book for a)lack of humor (the tone is as screechingly accusatory as any of the conservative pundits he enjoys bashing) b)lack of economic, scientific, or other logical background. He sets up the chapters w...

This book has got to be one of the most read (or at least most discussed) political commentary texts of the last ten years. It seems like everyone I know is familiar with the thesis – that Kansas is an example of what is strange (and Frank thinks, wrong) about American electoral politics – people will vote against their economic interests if they think such voting is in line with their moral concerns. So, though the Republican party shits all over working class people, they will continue to vote...

Simply put, "What's The Matter With Kansas?" in its latest (paperback) edition, is a book every politically active American should read. What its author, Thomas Frank, lacks in terms of tone (the book is likely to offend some) he overcomes with an incredibly clear-sighted appraisal of the ideological framework of modern conservatives and, to an extent, of America in general.Frank's opening thesis is that the "new conservatives" that sprang from the 1990s represent a seeming paradox: the poor fur...

A remarkably account of the development of "backlash" politics in the microcosm of Kansas. Thomas Frank asks himself why working-class people would vote against their economic interests to put the Republicans (Reagan, Bush 1, Bush 2) in power, when it would make much more sense to vote for liberals who would improve their educational options and increase progressive taxation. Put simply—why do poor American vote to lower the taxes on the rich? The answer is a little more complicated than this, b...

Thomas Frank, a Kansas native and former conservative, actually does manage to thoughtfully and fairly answer the title question "What's The Matter With Kansas?" He also explains why he thinks conservatives won “the heart of America.” More importantly, in my opinion, he got me to analyze why I feel the politics I feel and, ultimately, vote the way I vote. His book has a marvelous way of balancing emotion and logic in political rhetoric. Because of that, I consider this book one of beautiful, swi...

Frank looks at Kansas as a prime example of how the Republican Party has convinced working people to vote against their own economic self-interest by using so-called wedge issues. It is compelling analysis.

While I agree with the general hypothesis of this book that the Republican coup is to generate "social" wedge issues to get the "heartland" to vote against it's economic best interest, this book is a partisan editorial rant that lacks true scholarship and authenticity (despite footnotes). Althouh it is entertainingly written, I couldn't get through it.

This was a sort of guide to understanding conservative thinking, and it was really good. A bit dated (I think it was written in 2005?) but spot on when describing the mentality that eventually shattered the Republican party and metastasized into the diseased thing we call 'conservatism' today. While completely relevant to 2014, I'm not sure what exactly the book evokes more for the reader, contempt or pity for the 'backlash' conservatives he describes here. Either way, it was depressing to learn...

This is extremely dated, but nevertheless is high pulpit preaching to the choir. He redefines and redefines. He explains his own cause and effect beliefs more than he frames realities for those people he defines.He is not completely wrong in any cultural wars sense of comparisons, but at the same time with all his adjective and practices home population descriptions, he doesn't really understand identity or self-identity of the voter bases all that much. Furthermore, he quite adequately describe...