Review: What's the Matter With Kansas?

[4thofeleven]

It turns out that American publishers aren’t the only ones who make arbitrary changes to the titles of foreign books; Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas? is retitled here as What’s the Matter with America?. It’s an understandable change; non-American readers are wondering what the hell is wrong with America in general, and don’t really care that much about Kansas specifically – but it leads to a frustrating read, as each chapter you expect Frank to discuss something other than Kansas; to extrapolate his conclusions to the rest of the country – and he never does, because the book is in fact, entirely about Kansas, as the original title makes clear.

 

The matter with Kansas that Frank discusses is the rise of conservatism in a state that has, historically, been one of the most radical in the union; founded by Free Soil settlers and the home of radical populism in the early twentieth century. He also seeks to answer the question of why working class voters in Kansas continue to vote for pro-business Republican candidates against their own economic self-interest. It’s an interesting topic, and relevant here in Australia as well, where we see the same phenomena in John Howard’s ‘battlers’.

Frank notes the popularity of ‘backlash’ politics; a focus on cultural issues to the exclusion of any discussion of economic policy. A backlash against the cultural changes of the last few decades, manifested in anti-abortion, anti-homosexuality, anti-evolution, pro-religion movements. Meanwhile, the Democratic party has all but abandoned discussion of economic issues and class issues; culture becomes the only real battleground as both parties adopt a pro-business policy.

When the battle shifts to culture, not economics, Frank argues conservatives have an advantage. On economic issues, CEOs and millionaires cannot paint themselves as allies of the working man – but on cultural issues they can and have portrayed themselves as fellow ‘regular folks’ fighting against the ‘liberal elites’ of New York and Hollywood; the obvious example would be George Bush, the son of a president and born with a silver spoon in his mouth, who goes to great efforts to paint himself as a humble Texas rancher.

It’s an interesting read, but I can’t help but find myself disagreeing with Frank on a number of issues. To begin with, there is the elephant in the room – race. Frank states that the conservative backlash in Kansas is not racially defined, but never offers any real evidence to back this up. Certainly, Republican candidates aren’t in favour of explicitly racist politics – open racism has been electoral suicide for decades. But that doesn’t mean that racism is no longer an issue. Here in Australia, John Howard was a master of ‘dog whistle’ politics; seemingly innoculous statements with a hidden subtext directed at racists to indicate he was really on their side. I find it hard to believe a similar phenomena does not take place in the US; and, of course, black American voters continue to overwhelmingly support the Democratic party, despite being no less conservative that the general population. Now perhaps Frank is right, and Kansas is blessedly free of racial issues – but I find that hard to believe, and even harder to believe that that’s representative of America as a whole. Marxists like to say that Americans talk about race to avoid talking about class, and that may be so – but it is just as common for Americans to talk about class to avoid talking about race.

Another problem is that Frank often goes of on tangents that aren’t relevant to his main point – or to any point. For example, an entire chapter is devoted to the story of a man in Kansas who has appointed himself Pope, declaring all Popes since the Vatican II conference heretics. It’s an entertaining story, but hardly relevant to a discussion of conservative politics in Kansas – the man is a crackpot, a fringe figure even among those Catholics that reject Vatican II. He has no influence on anything, and Frank doesn’t even try to argue that he’s illustrative of any greater trend.

There is, I think, a subtext running through What’s the Matter with Kansas? that the problem is largely that Democrats have abandoned economic populism in favour of cultural issues in an attempt to win over businessmen and the socially liberal upper-middle class. Now, to be fair, while Frank argues that the Democratic party needs to return to economic populism, he never says that they also need to abandon cultural liberalism as well – but it is difficult to reach any other conclusion based on his argument. If the problem is that Kansans vote for the Republicans for cultural reasons, against their own economic self-interest, it seems reasonable to assume that merely offering economic policies that benefit them won’t be enough to win them back. The only solution is for the Democratic party to throw abortion and gay rights under the bus, and probably chuck racial tolerance and women’s rights in general out while they’re at it.

I think in general, Frank’s problem is that he has unknowingly bought into the backlash movement’s propaganda. The reactionary forces in American politics seek to portray themselves as the mainstream, as representing the average American*. They don’t, of course – they’re a very loud minority. The average American supports abortion rights, isn’t an evangelical, may not support gay marriage - but doesn’t support constitutional amendments against it either. But Thomas Frank never seems to realise this; he hears the ultra-conservatives insist they represent the ‘real America’, and assumes that they actually do have the average working man on their side. Quite often, he seems to concede ground to them – he criticizes biologists for being a ‘credential-flaunting, undiplomatic bunch of pedagogues” when evolution is challenged; he mocks conservative writers who complain of being ignored and belittled by liberal elites, but at the same time, he seems to be arguing that liberal America has brought defeat on itself by not being respectful enough of crack-pottery like creationism. He notes the absurdity of backlash conservatives blaming a moral decline in America on Hollywood liberals, noting that the entertainment industry is as ruthlessly governed by the bottom line as any other – but all he seems to do is shift the target from liberal elites to corporate barons. He seems to accept it as a given that Hollywood is furthering an immoral culture, that the Democratic party is governed by the elites – he just disagrees as to who’s calling the shots.

The most glaring problem with the book is that it’s out of date – it was written in 2004, and has an afterword written immediately after George Bush’s victory at the 2004 election. A lot’s changed since then; the ultra-conservative backlash movement that led Bush to victory seems, if anything, on the retreat. Bush’s 2004 victory in hindsight seems less the ultimate triumph of conservatism and more the last gasp of the popularity boost Bush gained in the aftermath of September 11. It turned out that the voters that cast their ballots for ‘moral issues’ were not universally radical conservatives, but just as likely to vote for the Democrat to voice their opposition to the Iraq war, torture, or Guantanamo Bay. In 2004, it seemed obvious that ultra-conservatism was unstoppable, and that the Democratic party in its current form was doomed to electoral oblivion. Four years on, the conservative coalition is fracturing, Democrats have control of congress, and smart money is on a Democratic electoral victory in November.

What’s the Matter with Kansas is an interesting read, don’t get me wrong; Thomas Frank’s descriptions of the economic effects of Republican policies are fascinating on their own, as are his descriptions of Kansas history – for example, the bizarre history of the competing pro-slavery and free soil state governments Kansas had prior to the Civil War. But I think in general, his main problem is that he views economic policy as the only – or at least the primary – legitimate field of politics. The matter with Kansas, in Frank’s eyes, is not that they vote for conservative cultural issues, but that they vote for any cultural issues at all. I have no idea if Frank is a Marxist himself, but his analysis of Kansas politics seems heavily influenced by a Marxist view of history, in which economics and class are the only legitimate motivation.

*When they’re not painting themselves as an oppressed minority, anyway.