Has anyone here read "What's Wrong with Kansas"?

[mrsadm]

What did you think of it?

[wurzel]

1. I didn't read it, but I heard the author in an interview.

He seemed to know exactly what he was talking about. How a lot of people have traded in their real economic interest to follow a totally phoney "Values" agenda. I was impressed with him.

[billkurtmeyer]

2. I'm reading it right now, great book but I think he oversimplifies . . .

the premise of his book some. Having most recently lived in Kansas for two years I found it interesting. I lived in a neighborhood that was all Bushies, and they were all voting against their best interests, especially the retirees, but to a large degree it boils down to religion and social issues. However, I am a strong believer the Bush's religion is a phony prop. His religious faith is miles wide but about an inch deep.

[girl gone mad]

3. I read an excerpt in..

Harper's, and thought it was compelling.

[Union Thug]

4. great book...

My only criticism is that it seemed to overstate some of the religious stuff (even though much of it made up the foundation of his argument - i felt a little 'over-exposed' to it).

I think he is dead on though. When the democrats started trying to be the 'other business party', they lost their grip on their working class constituents.

[mariema]

5. Yes, just finished reading it.

It is well written and I thought his unique perspective, coming from an upper middle class suburb in Kansas, made it even more compelling. He used humor and that insight to explain his central premise: that the “great (conservative) backlash” has made it near impossible for working and lower middle class conservatives to make the choice between their “moral” imperatives and their own financial interests in the voting booth.

It made me aware of a couple things that I had not thought through before. First, that almost all of the cultural “wedge” issues; abortion, stem cell research, prayer in school, etc., are not issues that are ever going to be resolved completely, thus we will always have them with us in one way or another. And, second, that all the conservatives have to do is keep their base focused on those issues, pay some lip service to those issues, make speeches and propose legislation that will never come to pass, and the “red states” will remain red no matter what.

[Stew225]

6. Thanks everyone! I'm glad I've got it reserved at

the library.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

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[mrsadm]

8. I'm about 2/3 the way through it now

Can't put it down because I have been desparate for this kind of information. Why do people vote against their own economic self-interests? He certainly sheds a lot of light on this topic.

He does talk about religious values - but he mentions a lot of other characteristics of the people in Kansas that leads them to vote for Repubs. One is the "self made angry man" who feels that society is morally deteriorating. He emphasizes the need people have for anger at something (since Communism has failed). He states that many people need order and a simple plan to follow in life; they like rules and feel rules should apply to everyone.

He also states that once Bill Clinton and the democrats voted for NAFTA, that all economic differences between the parties vanished. Only social issues were left, and the social conservatives then went to the repubs. That was one point that had never occurred to me.

In addition he talks about the victimized conservative who believes the elite liberals run the country. HUH? Another moment of disbelief for me. What liberals, where? Halliburton? Enron? Wall Street Journal? Total self delusion. Or brainwashing by the likes of Coulter.

In the NY Times this morning, there is an article about voters in a coal mining town in Ohio. Very depressing article. One woman said "Kerry hasn't worked a day in his life, while Bush has middle-class values". MIDDLE CLASS VALUES? Give me a *&^%$# break! Born w/silver spoon, pampered through Yale, on and on. Must be the pious family thing and all the photo-ops from the ranch.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. I've been saying this for years

When the Dems failed to stand up for the farmers who lost their farms in the 1980s or for the industrial workers who lost their jobs to foreign outsourcing, they gave up their traditional point of appeal as far as the working class and rural people are concerned.

[athena]

9. Reading it now.

It's very good. One important thing I've learned from it is how conservatives have had to completely erase money from their rhetoric to be able to paint themselves as the opressed underclass and liberals as the elite who control everything. It's by claiming that money is irrelevant that they manage to get the votes of the working poor while cutting taxes and making the rich richer. According to their theory of the world, the oppressors are the latte-drinking, Volvo-driving, Ivy-educated liberals whose aim is to destroy good old American values, and the oppressed are the conservatives -- blue-collar workers and millionnaires alike -- who believe that abortion is an abomination and evolution just a theory. In their view, the evil liberals control the media even when all the major media conglomerates are conservative, and dominate politics even when all three branches of government are republican. It's amazing.

Everybody needs to read this book.