June 27, 2019--What's the Matter With "What's the Matter With Kansas"?

I read Thomas Frank's What's the Matter With Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America when it was published in 2004 to great acclaim among progressives.

I found its central thesis to be persuasive. In a sentence Frank showed how over decades the conservative Kansas political establishment promised, if elected, to enact a long series of rightwing cultural policies (end abortion, bring prayer back to public schools, provide vouchers that would enable parents to offset the cost of private school tuition, ban same-sex marriage, eliminate the teaching of evolution, and so forth) while in return voters would not stand in the way of the conservatives' real agenda--essentially cutting government spending on all social programs such as Medicaid in order to pay for dramatic reductions in taxes for the wealthiest Kansans; and then, most important, once in office, they failed to deliver the social agenda but instead cynically enacted their self-serving regressive economic program.

Frank's central question was--Why are Kansas voters so seemingly willing to put aside their own self interest and go along with policies that will only make things worse for themselves?

In regard to this latter point, for years there has been something about it that did not sit right with me.

And then on Tuesday, during a long lunch with my politically-savvy cousin Harvey who lives in Maine, what has been troubling me for years became clear:

The Frank book is not about what's the matter with Kansas but rather what's the matter with the people of Kansas.

And for that reason it is incendiary because it ultimately blames the victims (the people) and not the perpetrators (the political leaders) for the voting patterns in Kansas and other Midwestern red states. 

Frank's point then turns out to be yet another version of the professional and academic class's saying to working people that we know better than you yourself what's good for you; and, further, we know even more clearly than you what needs to happen to serve your best interest is an expanded role for government.

Many, perhaps a majority of people who live and vote in the middle of the country for years have been saying that this is offensive and patronizing because it fails to recognize their ability to articulate what they value and the kind of role they on their own see it appropriate for government to play. 

More than anything they hate being taken for granted and feeling talked down to.

They have been saying this but not enough of us have not been listening. And thus for the most part Democrats running for national office have not figured out an effective way to communicate with voters they need to attract if they are to regain the White House and retain a majority in at least the House.

May 1, 2018--Jack: Trump Delivers

It felt like forever since I had heard from Jack and so, concerned about him, I called.

"I appreciated your being worried," he said.

"Actually concerned. A little concerned," I said to correct the record.

"It's funny you called. I was just thinking about you."

"Really? What were you thinking?"

"What else do we talk about? Trump."  Without waiting for my reaction, he raced ahead, "I was just watching Morning Joe. Thanks to you I tune them in once in awhile to see what the Commies are up to." He chuckled as if to indicate this wasn't going to be one of his stress-inducing rants.

"I was watching as well," I said, "To get a morning dose of the truth. There's so much spinning."

"From Joe and Mika as well," Jack said, "She's got him totally wimped out. Every day he's sounding more and more like Elizabeth Warren. It's the price of her agreeing to marry him. The next thing you know he'll be wearing an apron."

"Now I see why I resist calling you. If this is a bad time to talk we can . . ."

"It's as good a time as ever. You dropped the dime. So what's on your mind?"

"The last time we talked, in early February, I sensed a little doubt about him. About, as you used to refer to him, 'your boy.' It was when they fired his close aide, Rob Porter after he was caught having lied about abusing his wives. You told me about your growing up, about how your parents . . ."

Softly, he said, "No need to go there again. What's past is . . ."

"I wasn't going there except that I got the impression that you weren't happy that Trump had a spousal abuser working right next to him in the Oval Office because of your own . . ."

"I'd rather talk about Morning Joe."

"OK by me," I said, "I don't have an agenda. I just wanted to check in with you. To see how you are. So, what struck you from this morning's show?"

"Did you see that woman who wrote a book about what she called 'flyover country'?"

"I did," I said, "In fact, I just ordered it, The View from Flyover Country. By Sarah Kendzior. Sounds interesting. Good title."

"It was more what some of Scarborough's panelists had to say."

"I'm listening."

"You remember that book you mentioned to me a couple of years ago, What's the Matter With Kansas? Well, I got it out of the library and actually read it."

"What did you think?"

"You'll probably be surprised that I pretty much agreed with most of it. How conservative politicians in Kansas ignored economic issues like sinking wages and unemployment and fed people there a steady diet of what the writer called cultural issues. Back then, abortion, evolution, and gay marriage. You know I'm a libertarian and believe in all of these things. That government shouldn't say who can and cannot get married and get in the way of a woman wanting to have an abortion."

"I do know that about you. If you weren't that way I wouldn't be able to consider you a friend."

He ignore that and continued, "And then when they got elected, ultraconservatives, now in the majority at the state and federal level in Kansas, ignored people's concerns about those cultural issues and voted for tax cuts and things like that that favored rich people and big corporations. In other words the politicians again screwed the little people."

"And with Trump?"

"Maybe you weren't paying attention to Morning Joe, but that woman Kend-something and the others were saying that Trump also ran on a lot of conservative cultural issues but rather than selling out the people who voted for him he actually delivered. Or is in the process of doing so. And this included Evangelicals who overlooked all his misbehavior because they believed in what he was saying about immigrants and guns and science and Muslims and climate change and transgender people serving in the military." 

Jack continued, "More than anything else getting Gorsuch on the Supreme Court said it all. You would think that people who probably don't even know how many judges there are on the Court wouldn't be so crazed about Gorsuch. Most probably don't even know his name, but they believe he has their interests at heart. And that Trump put him there for them. In other words, unlike in Kansas and elsewhere, Trump is keeping his promises. And at his rallies talks to his people as if he's confiding in them. Paying attention to them and what's on their minds."

"And you mean they're not being screwed by Trump and his appointees? You mean that there is a real benefit to average people from the tax cuts that will add trillions to the debt? That Trump lied to his followers, that he continues to do so by focusing the vast bulk of the tax cuts on the richest 5 percent and the biggest businesses that are already doing very well? That doesn't sound like delivering to me."

"I will concede," Jack said, "that nothing and nobody's perfect but with Trump people feel he's on their side. Including when he creates what his opponents label chaos. He claims that he does this intentionally to shake up the system. To bring about new and better ways to do things. The old ways from traditional welfare kinds of programs to the way diplomacy has been practiced forever have only made things worse."

"I will agree with some of that. Especially that big government and big government programs haven't been that effective. I know about federal education programs and most of them haven't produced positive results."

"That's the understatement of the year," Jack said. "But my best case is what might be happening in Korea. Even you have written about how if things work out Trump will be entitled to a lot of credit. Minimally by scaring everyone who thinks he's crazy and if they don't make a deal he'll nuke them. That seems to have gotten Kim's attention."

"I did write about that and if things in fact do get better I'll be happy to see the credit shared. But that's about it. The rest of his agenda is either going nowhere or has already collapsed. Like making life better for working people--a majority of whom voted for him. The economy is growing but not at above-expected rates and people are not seeing a whole lot of additional money in their paychecks. So much so that Republicans are no longer running around patting themselves on their backs for passing that tax bill. So the one thing they accomplished is blowing up in their faces."

"Some of this may be true," Jack said, "But, I remind you, a good third of the population cares more about guns and abortion and being able to pray where and when they want, and, for those people, Trump is delivering."

"God help us," I muttered under my breath.