---
product_id: 15087512
title: "What's the Matter with Kansas?"
price: "253 kr"
currency: DKK
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 8
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---

# Insight on American heartland dynamics Top-ranked political bestseller Provocative political analysis What's the Matter with Kansas?

**Price:** 253 kr
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## Summary

> 📖 Decode the American political enigma before everyone else does!

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- **What is this?** What's the Matter with Kansas?
- **How much does it cost?** 253 kr with free shipping
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## Why This Product

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## Key Features

- • **Top-Ranked Bestseller Status:** Ranks in top 150 for Democracy and Political Conservatism books
- • **Bridging Culture and Economics:** Explores the shift from economic to moral issues in US politics
- • **Engaging & Accessible Narrative:** Written in a style that’s hard to put down, perfect for busy professionals
- • **Fuel Your Political IQ & Conversations:** Ideal for understanding the socio-political divide shaping America today
- • **Unravel the Heartland's Political Puzzle:** Deep dive into why Kansas voters defy economic expectations

## Overview

What's the Matter with Kansas? is a critically acclaimed political analysis book by Thomas Frank that explores the surprising voting patterns in America's heartland. It reveals how economic concerns gave way to cultural and moral issues in shaping political allegiances, offering a compelling, accessible narrative that has earned top rankings in political and democracy literature. A must-read for professionals seeking to understand the evolving American political landscape.

## Description

What's the Matter with Kansas? [Frank, Thomas] on desertcart.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. What's the Matter with Kansas?

Review: Provocative and Interesting Read that Is Hard to Put Down! - As an American who lives outside of my home country, I am regularly called upon to explain to my European friends how so many in America can be against health care, how so many "common" people are voting for the Republican Party, what has happened to pro-labor policies; and how so many poor seem to be aligned, rather than opposed to, the voting policies of the rich. This book really answers those questions well. Furthermore, the writing style is fantastic. Every time one picks it up, it's nearly impossible to put down. I read the entire thing in just five days. The quick answer here is that Democrats used to have the votes of the common man, and of blue-collar labor, because they concentrated on economic issues. Around 1990 the Democrats stopped talking about economic issues because they needed to RAISE MORE MONEY FROM BIG DONORS. They stopped talking about minimum wage issues and business practices that hurt small workers. Those small workers only gave small amounts of political contributions anyway; therefore no one was really interested in them as a constituency. As a result, the issues the Democrats are left talking about are things like legalizing gay marriage and keeping abortion legal. According to this book, starting around 1990, the "new" Republican wing started talking about moral issues such as not dismembering babies, not teaching children about gay sex, in addition to capturing the whole part of the country which is "anti-intellectual" above all else. They captured the sentiment of "America has changed, and it's not the America I grew up with," angry white voters, who now define all problems in America as coming from "liberals who hate America and want to destroy it." Liberals are now defined as "educated 'experts' (scientists and professionals) who try to tell us what to think (on issues such as climate change and gay marriage), who drink wine, drive Volvos, and who are NOT LIKE US, THE COMMON PEOPLE." All these people who used to be the Democratic base are now voting Republican because the Democrats have forgotten them by taking economics out of what they talk about. The book is a provocative and interesting excellent read.
Review: WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? HELL IN A HANDBASKET, DOWNHILL? - Odd: I finished the book less than 15 minutes ago, and found when I booted up the desertcart site, that I'd bought a hard-cover book. I hadn't noticed at all. But while reading KANSAS I didn't notice much of anything else outside the experience. It was a good reading experience. This is a writer who entertains as he informs, but doesn't condescend. His descriptions of his home city and his memories of it from childhood to the present, are colorful and fairly easy. Not a happy group of pictures mostly; the area has suffered, shriveled. If he has ferocious angers, acid envies and hatreds within him, we don't really see or hear them. His coming of age was deftly told; that is, when he first understood that he would never be one of the elite, and accepted it. Lingering, the realization that this book was published five years ago, and now its as though I'm looking at its conclusions through the near-derelect strip-mall spaces of one of the suburbs and small towns he shows us. And Frank shows us with clarity the effects that the business failures of big corporations have had, through the people he describes and interviews; the Backlash Republican Radicals. Their willful disregard of the effects of the forces that move them is tragic. It is as though they, the underclass, know they will always be scorned by those of the upper class, the Limousine Republicans, and so they firmly grasp that contempt and turn it inward in an act of Sepuku as if to say, Your contempt for us is our self-destruction, but our glory as well! And, Frank describes it all without sentiment, so that even in their folly, their hippocracy or their delusion, they have dignity. Still, I'm haunted by the final chapter of the book in which he appears to propose that perhaps a preponderant share of the destructive collapse of Kansas' civic pride is due to the fatal neglect by the Democratic Party, of its principal support and client, Organized Labor. Isn't it obvious? Completely nuts. Here, they're designated Liberals. It is true that for a time the cocuntry got sucked into the Thatcher-Reagan vortex of Liberal vs. Conservative spin, forgetting that all we ever were was Republican and Democrat, caught up in one national economy, and that toxic foreign conceit led to a growing self-delusion that blinded us to our self-interest, as we deafened ourselves with rancor that grew in foolishness as it grew in volume. Worse we allowed our civic dialogue to be poisoned by the Occult; that is, the propaganda of those who have faith without knowledge. Yes, we are in a time of rabid Anti-intelectualism. But then what? Greed, no matter how you rationalize it is not an ideology, and morbid selfishness is no way to run a participatory democracy. Or, maybe that's the point. Democracy = the tyrany of the masses. Plutocracy = the tyrany of the rich. Slavery is easiest; you have your mind made up for you and you eat scraps. Frank appears to the reader as a self-identified Liberal, and a man of sincere, balanced conviction. My feeling is that he resisted the temptation to speak out with strength. His temperament, probably. I don't feel his hot breath on my cheek, and in a way that's a pity. Certainly propagandists and pamphleteers can be and often are boring. People who cannot empathize with others are. Probably he chose wisely to self-censor in order that many, or at least more, might read and think where others would curse and turn away. I don't know. He's revealed a lot of the economic vs. cultural mechanism of so-called conservatism, and his book has been a great success. He has nothing to complain of. MORAL: The USA is a commercial (bait-and-switch) enterprise and strip-mall faith is a bi-product. Get used to it because its going to get worse.

## Features

- Conservative
- Heart of America
- Mid West
- Heartland
- Politics

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #86,466 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #110 in Democracy (Books) #122 in Political Conservatism & Liberalism #317 in U.S. State & Local History |
| Customer Reviews | 4.3 out of 5 stars 1,096 Reviews |

## Images

![What's the Matter with Kansas? - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71lCGLE+lTL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Provocative and Interesting Read that Is Hard to Put Down!
*by I***Z on April 12, 2016*

As an American who lives outside of my home country, I am regularly called upon to explain to my European friends how so many in America can be against health care, how so many "common" people are voting for the Republican Party, what has happened to pro-labor policies; and how so many poor seem to be aligned, rather than opposed to, the voting policies of the rich. This book really answers those questions well. Furthermore, the writing style is fantastic. Every time one picks it up, it's nearly impossible to put down. I read the entire thing in just five days. The quick answer here is that Democrats used to have the votes of the common man, and of blue-collar labor, because they concentrated on economic issues. Around 1990 the Democrats stopped talking about economic issues because they needed to RAISE MORE MONEY FROM BIG DONORS. They stopped talking about minimum wage issues and business practices that hurt small workers. Those small workers only gave small amounts of political contributions anyway; therefore no one was really interested in them as a constituency. As a result, the issues the Democrats are left talking about are things like legalizing gay marriage and keeping abortion legal. According to this book, starting around 1990, the "new" Republican wing started talking about moral issues such as not dismembering babies, not teaching children about gay sex, in addition to capturing the whole part of the country which is "anti-intellectual" above all else. They captured the sentiment of "America has changed, and it's not the America I grew up with," angry white voters, who now define all problems in America as coming from "liberals who hate America and want to destroy it." Liberals are now defined as "educated 'experts' (scientists and professionals) who try to tell us what to think (on issues such as climate change and gay marriage), who drink wine, drive Volvos, and who are NOT LIKE US, THE COMMON PEOPLE." All these people who used to be the Democratic base are now voting Republican because the Democrats have forgotten them by taking economics out of what they talk about. The book is a provocative and interesting excellent read.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? HELL IN A HANDBASKET, DOWNHILL?
*by J***H on October 21, 2009*

Odd: I finished the book less than 15 minutes ago, and found when I booted up the Amazon site, that I'd bought a hard-cover book. I hadn't noticed at all. But while reading KANSAS I didn't notice much of anything else outside the experience. It was a good reading experience. This is a writer who entertains as he informs, but doesn't condescend. His descriptions of his home city and his memories of it from childhood to the present, are colorful and fairly easy. Not a happy group of pictures mostly; the area has suffered, shriveled. If he has ferocious angers, acid envies and hatreds within him, we don't really see or hear them. His coming of age was deftly told; that is, when he first understood that he would never be one of the elite, and accepted it. Lingering, the realization that this book was published five years ago, and now its as though I'm looking at its conclusions through the near-derelect strip-mall spaces of one of the suburbs and small towns he shows us. And Frank shows us with clarity the effects that the business failures of big corporations have had, through the people he describes and interviews; the Backlash Republican Radicals. Their willful disregard of the effects of the forces that move them is tragic. It is as though they, the underclass, know they will always be scorned by those of the upper class, the Limousine Republicans, and so they firmly grasp that contempt and turn it inward in an act of Sepuku as if to say, Your contempt for us is our self-destruction, but our glory as well! And, Frank describes it all without sentiment, so that even in their folly, their hippocracy or their delusion, they have dignity. Still, I'm haunted by the final chapter of the book in which he appears to propose that perhaps a preponderant share of the destructive collapse of Kansas' civic pride is due to the fatal neglect by the Democratic Party, of its principal support and client, Organized Labor. Isn't it obvious? Completely nuts. Here, they're designated Liberals. It is true that for a time the cocuntry got sucked into the Thatcher-Reagan vortex of Liberal vs. Conservative spin, forgetting that all we ever were was Republican and Democrat, caught up in one national economy, and that toxic foreign conceit led to a growing self-delusion that blinded us to our self-interest, as we deafened ourselves with rancor that grew in foolishness as it grew in volume. Worse we allowed our civic dialogue to be poisoned by the Occult; that is, the propaganda of those who have faith without knowledge. Yes, we are in a time of rabid Anti-intelectualism. But then what? Greed, no matter how you rationalize it is not an ideology, and morbid selfishness is no way to run a participatory democracy. Or, maybe that's the point. Democracy = the tyrany of the masses. Plutocracy = the tyrany of the rich. Slavery is easiest; you have your mind made up for you and you eat scraps. Frank appears to the reader as a self-identified Liberal, and a man of sincere, balanced conviction. My feeling is that he resisted the temptation to speak out with strength. His temperament, probably. I don't feel his hot breath on my cheek, and in a way that's a pity. Certainly propagandists and pamphleteers can be and often are boring. People who cannot empathize with others are. Probably he chose wisely to self-censor in order that many, or at least more, might read and think where others would curse and turn away. I don't know. He's revealed a lot of the economic vs. cultural mechanism of so-called conservatism, and his book has been a great success. He has nothing to complain of. MORAL: The USA is a commercial (bait-and-switch) enterprise and strip-mall faith is a bi-product. Get used to it because its going to get worse.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Anecotal, but Essential, Reading on the Current Political Landscape
*by R***S on December 26, 2006*

When this book first appeared in 2004, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" was hailed as a powerful explanation of the political divide present in the early twenty-first century United States. Journalist Thomas Frank, who grew up in the upper-middle class suburbs of Kansas City, explores how a state renowned for agrarian radicalism in the latter nineteenth century, to say nothing of socialist ideals in the early twentieth, became a bastion of conservatism by the turn of the twenty-first. His answer, cultural and values politics rather than economic politics have dominated the current political scene. Written in a breezy style, it will not satisfy scholars but it nonetheless presents a compelling introduction to the current political divisions of the United States. Frank begins by asking a simple question, why do people vote against their economic interests? The Republican Party, he notes, has a penchant for big business, lessening regulations, and a diminution of the social programs that defined politics from the New Deal to the Great Society. The genius of the conservative movement, and the reason for its success, required a draining of the quest for economic justice that had dominated that earlier effort from the political agenda. Conservatives replaced it with values and cultural issues that attracted working class voters. The centerpiece of this was the anti-abortion issue, but it also included symbols of patriotism such as flag burning and the Pledge of Allegiance, the sanctity of marriage and whether it should be extended to gays, the stories told of American history, religious conceptions and their legitimacy in the public sphere, and the science behind evolution and other issues that some find uncomfortable. At its core, the values agenda advanced by the Republicans allowed the party to capture beginning in the 1980s all three branches of U.S. government and to rule with virtually no coordinated and effective opposition as the twenty-first century began. To be successful, they had to divorce all of these issues from the economic ones with which Republicans are so often identified and to motivate voters to support their values agenda despite the economic measures also a part of the Republican political effort. Ironically, while making considerable noise about cultural values and hot-button issues, the Republican majorities have done almost nothing to reverse the policies that motivated voters to send majorities of Republicans to Washington in the first place. This may well be, one of the great mysteries of current American politics. At the time this book was published, the Republicans had controlled the House of Representatives for ten years, and all three branches of government since January 2003. Even so, no major legislation had been passed to reverse the situation that values voters abhorred. Most importantly, nothing had been done to reverse a woman's right to chose whether or not to have a baby. This was the most volatile social issue and the one which Thomas Frank and others believe should have been on the top of the Republican agenda. The fact nothing substantive has changed is because of a series of rifts within the Republican Party as it fights internally over agenda-setting. At some level, co-opting the values voters, according to Frank, was a Machiavellian ploy to gain the votes necessary to take control of the U.S. government. Thereafter, the party ruled in the interest of its big business constituency, and in the process stabbed at least twice the constituency of values voters by not enacting the measures they advocated even as they harmed them with their economic policies. This is an important book that deserves consideration. It is, of course, a journalistic account of the current political divisions of the United States. It is overwhelmingly anecdotal, and far from a systematic analytical work, but it is also suggestive and provocative. There is every reason to believe it will be referenced in the on-going political analyses of the twenty-first century.

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