What's The Matter With Kansas? by Thomas Frank

 

Covering the early 2000's, this book purports to explain how Kansas and the majority of the Midwest, went from voting liberal to becoming a conservative haven.   His premise is that there is what he calls a thirty-year backlash against the ruling liberal class, which never existed.  He follows this premise into topics such as religion, social mores, farming, the loss of factory jobs, etc.  He believes that these converted voters are voting against their own best interest.

Thomas Frank is a political analyst and columnist.  He is a liberal and writes from that perspective.  I had interest in this topic but found the book more like a screed than fact-based.  Rather than statistics and analysis, the mantra seemed to be, 'Conservative bad, liberal good'.  There is nothing the liberals have wrong which makes one wonder why they lost followers.  There is nothing the conservatives have right from his perspective.  I ended up disappointed in this book.  I listened to it and the author was the narrator.  He did do a good job with the narration which is often not the case with authors reading their own works.  This book is recommended for die-hard liberals.