Thomas Frank, a native son of Kansas, has returned to his home state to understand its afflictions and writes about them with conviction and candor in his latest book, \What's the Matter with Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America.""
Frank's populist work continues from the outsider streak he has established from founding ""The Baffler"" magazine to his books, ""One Market Under God"" and ""The Conquest of Cool."" In ""Kansas,"" Frank examines in depth how working-class voters evolved from followers of William Jennings Bryan to today's Christian Right. The same demographic that produced the grassroots, class-antagonizing Populists of the Great Plains and Progressives of the Midwest are now today's gun-toting, abortion clinic-closing Republicans. The book encompasses everything from the Civil War politics of the American Midwest to Ann Coulter's latest misquotes.
The Daily Cardinal recently interviewed Thomas Frank about the upcoming election, middle-class voters and how his book was received at home.
The Daily Cardinal: How was the book, ""What's the Matter with Kansas,"" received in Kansas?
Thomas Frank: The media doesn't like it, but a lot of people do. I've been there numerous times since the book came out and have given a lot of lectures and every single time there have been very large audiences and very appreciative audiences-the best audiences I've ever had, quite frankly. I stay for hours afterward and they tell me all these incredible stories I wish I heard before I wrote the book. They say, 'OK, for the sequel, here's an anecdote; here's some amazing tales. Again, the media there does not like the book.
DC: Why do you think that is?
TF: I take that back, not all of them dislike it. The Lawrence newspaper has been very fair. The paper in Wichita and the Kansas City Star, along with other papers in the state, have come after me again and again. I think that's because, for one thing, I'm on their turf. I'm writing about their subject and I'm not one of theirs, not one of their own. Second of all, if what I say in the book is true, then those papers have done their job very poorly.
DC: With so many books coming out this year taking aim at the Bush administration, like ""Plan of Attack"" and ""Chain of Command,"" where do you think your book fits in?
TF: I have very little to say about the Bush administration. It's about the pop conservatism that supports that. Obviously it's not about Bush himself or the many mistakes that he has made.
DC: Do you think this coming election will produce the same red state/blue state divide that we saw in the 2000 election?
TF: It will be something similar to that. There's people now who are writing entire books about how significant this divide is and how it's really, really important and I'm not one of those people. The kind of pop conservative mentality I described in Kansas-I don't think that's a geographical thing. I think you can find that anywhere you go.
DC: Do you think part of the phenomenon is that people vote like who they want to be rather than who they are?
TF: That's the famous explanation for it. Thorsten Veblen came up with that about 100 years ago. That accounts for a certain type of person who identifies with the upper class. I know many people like that. However, the main power of this kind of conservative populism is not that it reveres the rich, or worships the rich, or wants to be them. It despises them. It is class animosity, but class animosity defined in this weird way, where the problem with the upper class is that they're liberals. In the book there are numerous examples of people denouncing the rich on the grounds that they are liberals. It's not that they want to be those people. This is just a different way of expressing class anger.
DC: What do you think of the strategy of targeting the middle- class voter?
TF: That means almost nothing; because the way those people define the middle class includes everybody. Generalities like that don't mean anything. The general Democratic strategy, though, has been to forget about working class voters and try to reach professionals. Look, if Kerry wins, we're going to hear about what a great success this strategy has been. If Kerry loses, then it's time to re-evaluate the whole thing.
DC: How long do you think conservatives can hold on to the working class vote?
TF: They can do it for as long as we have things like Fox News. It's not like they win all working-class votes. You're in Wisconsin. That's a state that has both a powerful left tradition-think Milwaukee with its socialist mayors-and also it has a strong right tradition with McCarthy and the John Birch Society. Both sides are out there. It's not that they win all working votes, or even the working class vote. They win a part of it and the thing is that they win enough of it to make a difference. This has been going on for a while. That will continue until the Democrats figure out how to short circuit it, how to bring those voters back.
DC: If you were to point to a specific point at which Kansas went from liberal populism to conservative populism, what would that moment be?
TF: The transition went over many, many years, but the focal event in the book [is] where right-wing populism was the Summer of Mercy, when Operation Rescue came to Wichita in 1991.
DC: What do you think explains the religious shift, how populism went from William Jennings Bryan more to the vein of today's Christian Right?
TF: That is a question unto itself. There are people who have spent their entire academic careers on that subject. In some ways that shift happened at the big political shift in the '60s. It was a change in its own right that allowed all these other things to happen. It happened before the politics, in some ways.
DC: How would you say Midwestern Progressivism compares to Great Plains Populism?
TF: La Follette was very popular in Kansas. Kansas used to go for Progressives back in the day. In 1924 when La Follette ran, he got a lot of support in Kansas. The difference was that Populists operated outside of the two main parties. That is why they were such a threat to the system, and why they were despised. La Follette was able to enjoy a long career in the United States Senate. He was a rebel and a troublemaker, but he used to operate inside the Republican Party. The Republicans used to have plenty of liberals inside the party.
DC: What are your future plans?
TF: This book has taken over my life. I very much look forward to coming to Madison. It's one of my favorite cities in the whole country.
---Interview conducted by Ben Schultz.
Thomas Frank will appear at the University Bookstore on Thursday at 6:00 PM.
