In brief: Why do these people stand with Republicans when Republicans do not stand with them? From the Blog . Smooth jazz. They, the conservatives, are the real outsides, they tell us, gazing with disgust upon the ludicrous manners of the high and mighty. Frank Rich Lets His Freak Flag Fly, Maaan. [The right] may never bring prayer back to schools, but it has rescued all manner of rightwing economic nostrums from history's dustbins. Posts about Whats the Matter With Kansas? More than a century later, the phrase was invoked as the title of a book March 21, 2017 by Warren. Welcome back. Based on the Thomas Frank's best-seller, What's the Matter with Kansas? sur votre Kindle en moins d'une minute. A former opinion columnist for The Wall Street Journal, Frank is the founding editor of The Baffler and a monthly columnist for Harper's. Error rating book. Nothing under the shining sun. There are two main beefs I have with it, but both of them are omissions, rather than errors or incorrect statements/modes of thought/analysis. Based on the Thomas Frank's best-seller, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" We are accustomed to thinking of the backlash as a phenomenon of the seventies (the busing riots, the tax revolt) or the eighties (the Reagan revolution); in Kansas the great move to the right was a story of the nineties, a story of the present., above all, intellectual. And yes, the backlash agrees, everything is politicized -- the way you mow your lawn, the color you paint your house, whether or not you ride a bicycle -- but politicized negatively. "What's The Matter with Kansas" didn't delve deeply into the white-identity politics, race-based sense of economic entitlement, anxiety and resentment Refresh and try again. : How Conservatives Won the Heart of America Reprint by Frank, Thomas (ISBN: 9780805077742) from Amazon's Book Store. Summary: In 'What's the Matter with Kansas?' In a word, it was an exercise in anti-intellectualism. Vote to strike a blow against elitism; receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our lifetimes, in which workers have been stripped of power and CEOs are rewarded in a manner beyond imagining., Were all free agents in this noncoercive class system, and Brooks eventually concludes that worrying about the problems faced by workers is yet another deluded affectation of the blue-state rich., he saw in Populism the first glimmerings of some of the great intellectual upheavals of the twentieth centurynaturalism, muckraking, and hard-hitting social satirewhich would eventually topple the genteel tradition of the nineteenth century. In a peculiar way, Parrington seemed to think, Kansas was one of the birthplaces of literary modernism. Thomas Frank, What's the Matter With Kansas? We do not labor under the yoke of some abstraction like market forces, or even flesh-and-blood figures like executives or owners. Whats the Matter With Kansas? Mary Elizabeth Lease. THE WARREN (HENRY) REPORT. In a peculiar way, Parrington seemed to think, Kansas was one of the birthplaces of literary modernism. Thomas Frank, What's the Matter With Kansas? Philip: Do you think we're gonna get fired? One of the Ten Best Documentaries of 2009 . Vote to make our country strong again; receive deindustrialization. Thomas Frank is a political analyst, historian, journalist and columnist for Harper's Magazine, and he co-founded and edited The Baffler. From the best-selling author of What's the Matter with Kansas?, a wonderfully insightful and sardonic look at how the worst economy since the 1930s has brought about the revival of conservatism.Economic catastrophe usually brings social protest and demands for change - or at least it's supposed to. She is losing her wealth, population and standing.She has got her statesmen, and the money power is afraid of her. They are laughing at the dainty affectations of the Leawoof toffs. Cupcake Land encourages no culture but that which increases property values; supports no learning but that which burnishes the brand; hears no opinions but those that will further fatten the cupcake elite; tolerates no rebellion but that expressed in haircuts and piercings and alternative rock. They are shaking their fists at the sons of privilege. Buy What's the Matter with Kansas? Cupcake Land is a metropolis built entirely according to the developer's plan, without the interference of angry proles or ethnic pols as in nearby Kansas City. Indeed, it has greater currency on the street today than do twenty years' worth of blue-ribbon studies and a lifetime of responsible sociology. Contemporary conservatism holds as a key article of faith that it is fruitless to scrutinize the business pages for clues about the way the world works. Our company is too big. It's never been enunciated with anything approaching scholarly rigor, it has been refuted countless times, and it falls apart under any sort of systematic scrutiny. But I am having one of those days and will work it out on Richs latest di What's the Matter with Kansas?, a documentary by Laura Cohen and Joe Winston (based on the 2004 book by Thomas Frank) washes the screen with those metaphors in beautiful hues, stark contrasts and--often--with probing insight and irony. 'We are here,' they scream, 'to cut your taxes., the people at the top know what they have to do to stay there, and in a pinch they can easily overlook the sweaty piety of the new Republican masses, the social conservatives who raise their voices in praise of Jesus but cast their votes for Caesar., Theres a reason you probably havent heard much about this aspect of the heartland. How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, What's the Matter With Kansas? It has migrated from the periphery to the very center of the backlash worldview. We, the Middle Americans, are utterly powerless to change our culture -- to ban abortion or outlaw sodomy or build Ten Commandments monuments -- or to prevent the left from wrecking daily life. In "What's the Matter with Kansas?," journalist and historian Thomas Frank uses the example of his native state to ponder both how and why working-class and poor white Americans in the heartland vote for a party that advances policies benefiting wealthy individuals and corporations. Vote to get government off our backs; receive conglomeration and monopoly everywhere from media to meatpacking. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. Backlashers are, in fact, just about the only people in the world who would agree with the professors who find all sorts of subversiveness in Madonna and Britney and Christina Aguilera. (206-208), What's the Matter with Kansas? For years I thought that what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa. Or, they tell us, they are rough-and-ready proles, laughing along with us at the efforts of our social "betters" to reform and improve us. is the fourth episode of the show's fifth season. makes its case methodically, using Tom Frank's interviews with various Kansans to suggest a cross-section of political views, as well as snippets of historical context. It did not die with Richard Nixon or peter out with the busing controversy or depart the national scene with the wily Bill Clinton. To the irritation of local leaders, the nickname has stuck. What they're after is cultural turmoil, which serves mainly to solidify their base. A Kansas megachurch splinters, while a farmer brings a progressive message to Washington. Liberals do anything, in fact, that promises to advance their larger partisan project, to create more liberals, and thus to win. Liberalism is not a product of social forces, backlashers believe, it is a social force, a juggernaut moving according to a logic all its own, as rigid and mechanical as anything dreamed up by the Stalinists of yesterday., Today conservatism has arrived in that dark place. Roger Ebert just named his Ten Best Dec 23, 2009 News, Reviews 2. By Thomas Hoffman In Whats the Matter with Kansas, Thomas Frank examines exactly that. What's the Matter with Kansas? He lives outside Washington, D.C. Customers who read this book also read. The real object of their anti-evolution gambit, I believe, was not getting Kansans right with God but getting themselves reelected. A final, telling commonality: neither movement bothers seriously to consider the role of business in American life of culture., Back in the eighties, the journalist Richard Rhodes nailed the place with just two words: Cupcake Land. (2004) by Thomas Frank. Better Hell Stop. Meanwhile, an idealistic farmer revives Kansas' progressive tradition, taking his message all the way to Washington, D.C. Vote to stand tall against terrorists; receive Social Security privatization. Shes a lifelong Republican activist. a politically active Kansas megachurch splinters, moves to an amusement park, and when that fails, a Best Western motel. What's the Matter with Kansas was an 1896 newspaper editorial. Anti-intellectualism is one of the grand unifying themes of the backlash, the mutant strain of class war that underpins so many of Kansass otherwise random-seeming grievances. Having rolled back the landmark economic reforms of the sixties (the war on poverty) and those of the thirties (labor law, agricultural price supports, banking regulation), its leaders now turn their guns on the accomplishments of the earliest years of progressivism (Woodrow Wilson's estate tax; Theodore Roosevelt's anti-trust measures). I was at the 1976 Republican Convention in Kansas City. No, it is intellectuals who call the shots,, When you have rejected all the accepted social science methods for understanding the way things work, when you cant talk straight about social class, when you cant acknowledge that free-market forces migh*** always be for the best, when you cant admit the validity of even the most basic historical truths, all youre left with are these blunt tools: journalists and sociologists and historians and musicians and photographers do what they do because they are liberals. The Americans Season 5 Episode 4 Quotes. Philip: I know. This kind of blight cant be easily blamed on the usual suspects like government or counterculture or high-hat urban policy. Yet the idea persists. The angry workers, mighty in their numbers, are marching irresistibly against the arrogant. written by Warren. Unforgettable characters and their stories shed new light on our nation's political divide. And liberals lie. The idea of a liberal elite is not intellectually robust. With a little more effort, the backlash may well repeal the entire twentieth century. The best political book of the year. -Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times Frank is a formidable controversialist-ima A former opinion columnist for The Wall Street Journal, Frank is the founding editor of The Baffler and a monthly columnist for Harper's. It is the assertion on which all else rests., In destroying its own agency, as well as in many other ways, the backlash is a precise mirror image of the pseudo-leftist academic discipline known as cultural studies. He lives outside Washington, D.C. Commencez lire What's the Matter with Kansas? Kansas had better stop raising corn and begin raising hell. They are massing at the gates of Mission Hills, hoisting the black flag, and while the millionaires tremble in their mansions, they are bellowing out their terrifying demands. Skip to content. Unforgettable characters and their stories shed new light on our nation's political divide. All of the answers to the meaning of life are there. Philip's past makes things uncomfortable during a new assignment on The Americans. It goes with the welfare of the country. The difference did not exist. The culprit is the conservatives beloved free-market capitalism, a system that, at its most unrestrained, has little use for smalltown merchants or the agricultural system that supported the small towns in the first place., The trick never ages; the illusion never wears off. Vote to screw those politically correct college professors; receive electricity deregulation. Our motto is: Don't quote it if you can't source it. For the backlash, on the other hand, nobody has agency except for people on the left. Apparently, there is no bad economic turn a conservative cannot do unto his buddy in the working class, as long as cultural solidarity has been cemented over a beer. I was running 'Nobody for President' at the time. More than a century later, the phrase was invoked as the title of a book and a film; it has also been used in many other contexts. Share with your friends the best quotes from What's the Matter with Kansas?. Whats the Matter with Kansas is an excellent book and a surprisingly fast read considering how much info and how many ideas Frank manages to cram into its 250 pages. The villain that did this to my home state wasnt the Supreme Court or Lyndon Johnson, showering dollars on the poor or putting criminals back on the street. Thomas Frank is the author of Pity the Billionaire, The Wrecking Crew, What's the Matter with Kansas?, and One Market Under God. Elizabeth: It's not funny. Corporate Woods. For the most part, Frank is dead on. Kansas is all right. What's the matter with Kansas? By deliberately courting the wrath of the educated world with the evolution issue, the Cons aimed, it seems, to reinforce and to sharpen their followers' peculiar understanding of social class. Maybe Frank Rich was just having one of those days and needed to take it out on Trumps base. Our contribution to the nation is considerable. In a peculiar way, Parrington seemed to think, Kansas was one of the birthplaces of literary modernism., In 1991, though, began an uprising that would propel those reptilian Republicans from a tiny splinter group into the states dominant political faction, that would reduce Kansas Democrats to third-party status, and that would wreck what remained of the states progressive legacy. Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1 . After all, you can hardly deride liberals as society's "elite" or present the GOP as the party of the common man if you acknowledge the existence of the corporate world the power that creates the nation's real elite, that dominates its real class system, and that wields the Republican Party as its personal political system. How Conservatives Won the Heart of America by Thomas Frank Metropolitan/Owl Books, 2004, paper p5 the Great Backlash [is] a style of conservatism that first came snarling onto the national stage in response to the partying and protests of the late sixties. You know what it's like even though you haven't been there. Applebees. Vote to stop abortion; receive a rollback in capital gains taxes. Thomas Franks book Whats the Matter with Kansas? stayed on the New York Times best-seller list for an incredible 38 weeks. "What's the Matter with Kansas?" (49), And like the abortion controversy or the jihad against gangsta rap, the battle over evolution seems almost to have been designed to keep Kansas polarized, keep its outrage levels high and its Con pot boiling, while changing the way things are actually done not a bit. That they are often, in fact, people of privilege doing their utmost to boost the fortunes of a political party that is the traditional tool of the privileged is a contradiction that does not trouble them. shows how Kansas transformed from an outpost of radicalism to a bastion of conservatism. RuPaul. Liberals cheat. Thomas Frank is the author of Pity the Billionaire, The Wrecking Crew, What's the Matter with Kansas?, and One Market Under God. Angel Dillard helps run the most popular booth at the Kansas State Fair: Kansans For Life. : How Conservatives Won the Heart of America Vous n Life Good Back. Permalink: Do you think we're gonna get fired? : How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. As we have seen, conservatives grandstand eloquently on cultural issues but almost never achieve real-world results. : How Conservatives Won the Heart of America The great goal of the backlash is to nurture a cultural class war, and the first step in doing so, as we have seen, is to deny the economic basis of social class. Even as American journalism lurches palpably to the right, the best-selling right-wing media critics go from shrill to shriller, from charges of bias to Coulteresque accusations of outright left-wing indoctrination. The backlash worldview is less true than ever, and yet conservatives rely on it more and more. Collection of sourced quotations from What's the Matter with Kansas? Everything offends; everything is calculated to advance liberalism's plot to make the culture more to its liking. Learn more at whatsthematterwithkansas.com What's the Matter with Kansas? Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders. Remarkable Last Words (or Near-Last Words). 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