From Chuck:
I had the pleasure last night to see Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz talk in Lawrence, KS at the Solidarity Center and Infoshop. She spent most of her talk discussing and reading from her new book “Blood on the Border: A Memoir of the Contra War” which was just published by South End Press. Dunbar-Ortiz spoke to a packed room. Most of her talk focused on her experiences in Central America, but she also touched on activism and said a few things about Thomas Frank’s “What’s the Matter With Kansas.” She talked more about the book during the Q&A, asking if Frank really had talked to working people in Kansas and complaining about his attachment to the Democrats. She ended with an observation about the large number of Americans who don’t vote and she suggested that a movement of nonvoters be organized. I rather like this latter idea and am thinking about including it in the anti-voting activism I plan to do this year. I agree with Dunbar-Ortiz that the vast majority of Americans who don’t vote for solid reasons are dismissed by those who have an attachment to voting and the (corrupt) American system.
I talked to Roxanne afterwards and the subject of Thomas Frank came up. She asked me if I had read What’s the Matter with Kansas and I told her that I had recently finished it. She expressed skepticism about Frank’s assertion that he came from a lower middle class background. I pointed out that Frank came from an upper middle class family which lived in Mission Hills, while I had come from a lower middle class/working class family in Leawood. Both Frank and I are the same age and started college at Kansas the same year.
Roxanne asked me for my take on WTMK and I mentioned the discussion on this list. She agreed with me that Frank really hadn’t talked to many working class people when he was doing research for his book. This was one of the clear impressions that I developed while reading the book. I expected it to be filled with anecdotes from rural, working class, and poor Kansans, but most of the people mentioned in the book are middle class people like the Republicans in Johnson County. I know that my friend and comrade, Tad Kepley, who is mentioned in the book comes from working class, rural small town Kansas (Ulysses).
I haven’t read the article by Bartels or his exchanges with Frank, but from the Chicago Reader article I get that he is partially correct about the class question in Frank’s book, while at the same time kind of missing the accurate analysis in the book. Statistics can shed light on political questions, but dry math doesn’t tell the whole story, which I think Frank mostly gets right in his book.
What does Frank get right? I think that Thomas Frank does an excellent job of explaining Kansas politics and its history. His take on the divide between “mods” and “cons” in the Republican party of Johnson County sounds accurate to me. His big argument about the uses of populism to entrench support for Republicans, the “backlash” theory, is spot on. The Republican-Conservative-Religious Right spin machine has worked wonders in Kansas. That’s why extremists like Jim Ryun and Sam Brownback have been elected. That’s why you will find middle class white guys in parking lots around Johnson County spending their lunch hour listening to Rush Limbaugh. Frank’s analysis of the “backlash” is a good explanation of why the Republicans have been so successful and scary in the past 25 years.
On the other hand, Frank is so tied to the Democrats that he makes it sound like the Republican juggernaut is more powerful than it actually is. This was my biggest problem with the book that Frank made it seem like the Republicans will be dominant for decades to come. Of course, the Democrats are so pathetic right now that they’ll believe anything that will reinforce their own perceived powerlessness. The situation for the Democrats and the left is not that bleak and the case against Republican hegemony can be found all around Kansas.
Take for example, Governor Kathleen Sebelius, Representative Dennis Moore, and the State Board of Education. Governor Sebelius is a Democrat and a woman and very popular. How in the world did this woman get elected in Kansas if the Frank is right about the overwhelming power of the backlash? Possible answer in a few sentences. Representative Dennis Moore is a liberal Republican who represents rich, white middle class Johnson County. JOCO has a history of electing moderate Republicans, but the county has been getting more “purple” since I left it for college in 1983. I suspect that much of this shift has to do with an influx of new people to the JOCO suburbs from more liberal areas elsewhere. And Kansas has a history of electing Democrats (Jim Slattery) to Congress and liberal Republicans (Nancy Kassebaum, whom I once voted for). Where does the State Board of Education come into play? You have heard about this body because they’ve been in the news last year because of the Intelligent Design controversy. This board is dominated by religious right activists, which are there because of tactics used by backlash conservatives around the country. But remember the last time Kansas was in the news over evolution? That was back in 1999, when the same board—with different religious nuts—voted to put creationism in public schools. That created a big controversy, unwanted international attention, and many jokes. But that board was voted out of office as the current board will be voted out.
The Democrats won’t reverse their situation as long as the deceptive “red state” vs. “blue state” rhetoric is used. That crap may have looked cute on network TV on election night, but it badly distorts actual political leanings. Let’s remember the obvious fact that Bush barely won the last election and was finagled into office in 2000. The red state vs. blue state thing is fucking worthless when an election is that close.
Kansas City is what could be considered as a “purple” city. There are equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats and a large number of independents and nonvoters. Back in early 2004, I visited that website that showed political donors by zip code and address. I was surprised to see lots of donors to the Dean campaign here in Johnson County. I was also surprised that people in Raytown—a working class section of KCMO—were donating lots of money to the Republicans. After the elections, I checked the voting maps that were broken down by zip codes. More than a few precincts on the Kansas side of the state line (including Leawood) had a majority of voters that went for Kerry.
The presidential election is probably not the best barometer when analyzing real political allegiances. Kansas does send mostly Republicans to congress. Kansas is mostly Republican, so that’s not a big surprise. But Frank does touch on some important things about Kansas’s politics. Kansas has a long tradition of political populism. Most of this took place in the 19th and early 20th century, but much of that tendency persists.
In 1992, Ross Perot ran for President and got 18.9% of the popular vote. If you look at a country breakdown of that election, you won’t find many counties shaded in Perot’s colors. But if you look at the map of Kansas, you’ll find that Perot won several counties, including a few rural ones in the south part of the state. I think that Perot’s ’92 showing in Kansas shows that Kansans can’t be reduced to mere stupid people who blindly vote for Republicans.
That’s another criticism that Dunbar-Ortiz had about Frank, that he has this attitude that Kansans are stupid. I think that Frank’s take on the backlash is mostly correct, but he really failed to show that Kansans are buying Republican snake oil wholesale at the Sam’s Club. Yes, the Dittoheads and the religious right have been effective in Kansas. The Wichita anti-abortion campaign was a smart political campaign. They are using the State Board of Education as an anti-evolution platform. But at the same time, there are many Kansans who are Democrats, independents and nonvoters.
The other day in my house somebody loudly proclaimed that Bush should be impeached. It wasn’t me, rather my younger sister who voted for Perot twice and complains about the New World Order.
I think that Frank’s arguments about the Conservative backlash campaign are broadly accurate when you look at what they are doing on the national level. Frank uses Kansas as a canvas to paint his analysis of what the conservatives are doing.
What about class?
I agree with Dunbar-Ortiz, Bartels, and other on this list that Frank’s arguments fail to take class into account. Many of the conservatives interviewed and mentioned in What’s the Matter With Kansas are clearly middle class, white guys. That’s significant in that white guys buy into the backlash nonsense peddled by the right wing. Oh yes, I feel sorry for that middle age white guy in the SUV next to me who feels that he is being persecuted by feminists, gays, Hillary Clinton, and Ted Kennedy. Frank really has his thumb on the pulse of these JOCO conservatives, both the mods and the cons. But this is a limited demographic. One of the key arguments of WTMK is that the conservative backlash strategy is growing a bigger conservative movement. The poster child for the effectiveness of this strategy is the Democrats losing power in the south. One could also point to the dominance of the Republicans in Congress, but how much of that depends on the tendency of incumbents to get re-elected?
The backlash strategy and right wing media have grown the conservative movement, but isn’t this really a case of the Republicans just making their base more zealous? I kept waiting to hear from more farmers, people of color and young people in WTMK. I thought that Frank would have traveled the state like William Least Heat-Moon dug into Chase County, Kansas. I got the impression that Frank talked to a few working people at some truck stops, but I don’t think he made the case that the conservative backlash movement has captured the support of working class Kansans. Frank claims that the conservatives have convinced working class people to vote against their interests, but the cons in Johnson County are mostly middle class, white people. These are the folks who drive SUVs, go to megachurches, and run contracting companies.
Are young people voting for the Republicans? Are people of color? Bush won several counties in Kansas that usually go Democrat, but are these swings based on working class, young people, or POCs voting against their interests? I won’t go into an anarchist critique here about how voting for the Democrats would be against somebody’s interest.
Frank also doesn’t talk about all of the nonvoters in Kansas. These are mostly people disaffected by the political system who reject participation. It would have been interesting to hear from more of these people in WTMK. Perhaps this is something that Bartels can shed some light on with voting abstention patterns.
Is it possible that the Democrats themselves are more to blame for their problems than the effectiveness of the conservative backlash machine? What happens when you kill off a growing populist campaign for Howard Dean with a calculating, stupid decision to run Kerry? Thomas Frank has drilled into the Democrats on this point. At his last speech here in Kansas City, Frank explained how he knew in the summer of 2004 that the Democrats were going down to defeat because of Kerry and his baggage. Is it possible that the Democrats have driven more people into the nonvoting camp than the Republicans have picked up from backlash, religious right organizing, and Dittomedia? The presidential election was very close and you have to wonder how the Democrats could lose to a village idiot like George W.
The argument between Bartels and Frank about what “working class” means is interesting. It’s very hard to agree on the definition of who constitutes the working class. Even radicals disagree on the parameters. Many people in the United States consider themselves to be middle class. Polls show widespread admiration for the wealthy and a belief that becoming a rich person is within reach of a hard-working American. Hell, there was a Valentine’s Day story yesterday about how users of online dating services lie about their income. Four percent of guys claim on their profiles that they make over $200,000/ year when only 2% of the population actually fall within that category.
But Frank is sloppy about class in his book, which is a problem given that he argues that working people are voting against their interests by subscribing to backlash politics and voting Republican. I think that backlash politics doesn’t convert many people and mostly energizes the Republican base. Did people of color in Wyandotte, Sedgwick, Douglas, and Shawnee counties suddenly start voting Republican? That’s hard to believe? How about young people? They still don’t vote. Poor working class whites? There aren’t many of them in Johnson County, so we either need more data or some explanation from Frank?
What about those “cons” in Johnson County who are really into the culture wars and religion? These people are not working class folks voting against their interests. What is the interest of the typical “con” in Johnson County? These are middle class, white suburbanites. Many of them may be overextended by debt, but they live in good homes and live middle class lifestyles. These people want to be rich. What are their issues? One issue would be health care. I can’t see how voting for Republicans on health care is contrary to their interest when the Democrats offer no alternatives on health care.
Frank also ignores the working class people who WORK in Johnson County but who live in Missouri. I think he would have addressed this if he had lived in Kansas City at some point in the past 20 years. The working class people who work in Johnson County live in Kansas City, Missouri, Raytown, and Lee’s Summit, Mo. This is why Interstate 435 on the south side of town has tremendous traffic problems because working class people are commuting to JOCO from their residences in Missouri. It would be interesting if Frank had looked at the politics of these people. Are the people who work in Johnson County and who live in Missouri changing their political allegiance because of backlash politics?
How about farmers? There aren’t many independent farmers left in Kansas. Are they voting against their interest when they vote for Republicans? Haven’t farmers traditionally voted for Republicans?
What about the case of those tax breaks in Wichita for big companies like Boeing? Americans are notorious for tuning out local politics. Frank discusses various incidents in which big corporations held cities and towns hostage with threats to leave. Here in Johnson County, three miles from where I presently sit, Overland Park spent millions of dollars building a huge headquarters campus for Sprint. But if these cities and towns are being suckered into these bad deals, how has the conservative backlash played into this business-as-usual which people tune out? Frank argues that the religious right offers up culture war nonsense to distract people from the real changes that wealthy Republicans want. But how does the backlash play into non-involvement of people in these tax break deals like Boeing in Wichita?
While Frank accurately sketches out the nature and influence of the conservative backlash, I think that Bartels is counterbalancing Frank’s conclusions with some sobering data about American political attitudes. I think that the backlash hasn’t really turned people into Republicans, but it has motivated grassroots conservatives and it has shifted the media and the Democrats to the right.
This is my other big beef with What’s the Matter With Kansas?, the implied assumption that the Democrats are an alternative to the Republicans. When were the Democrats an alternative to the Republicans? The Clinton administration was for all intents and purposes a Republican administration. And if the Democrats are no different than the Republicans, how can it be argued that working class people are voting against their interests when they vote Republican? Didn’t the Democrats under Clinton reform welfare? Wasn’t NAFTA signed on Clinton’s watch? The anti-WTO riots happened when Clinton was president.
The Democrats are not an alternative to the Republicans and most Americans understand that. The real story here may be the huge numbers of working class and young people who have rejected supporting both parties and participation in a fucked-up system. This is a kind of populism that the Left should be tapping into, but I’m skeptical because many leftists are still swayed by liberal-left arguments about supporting the Democrats as the lesser of two evils. I think that Thomas Frank wants the Democrats to rediscover populism and motivate working people to support the Democrats, but Frank is pessimistic about this happening.
I really love Frank’s writings and think that WTMK? Is an excellent book. His analysis of Kansas politics is perceptive and his description of the conservative backlash is descriptive of a real phenomenon. At the same time, I think that the neo-con/Dittohead/pro-life movement is not all powerful and could experience a significant collapse sooner rather than later. I think that Frank is too attached to the Democrats, who do not represent the interests of the working class or other people. And I don’t think the Democrats will learn anything from this book in a practical way.
More reading: Who are you calling working class? http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/02/12/who_are_you_calling_working_class/