Introduction
Thomas Frank has been deeply astonished and revolted with the myth of the “two-nation” America which has been cultivated by various opinion makers – especially popular journalists. This observation motivated him to look for this true America that so many op-eds and public intellectuals were talking about. This America from the “heartland” became his domain of investigation where this young journalist wanted to check if the myth of the polarized America that was presented to all the Americans was indeed a reality. This process led him to the writing quite a long and precise book on this very topic, it is named: What's the matter with Kansas?
His Kansan roots oriented his choice of a strong conservative and genuine part of the United States he could analyze cautiously and plainly. In effect, George W. Bush scored about 80 % in this state in the 2000 election. The author was looking for a state that could faithfully represent what the blue-collared America that one described as “righteous”, “simple” and naturally, strongly “Christian” was really about.
[...] As Thomas Frank puts it, it is: a populist uprising that only benefits the people it is supposed to be targeting” This leads to a latent destruction of the welfare state that is authorized by its former defender, the working class, because of the concealment of these neo-liberal policies through the cultivation of “cultural anger” and the feeling of loss of the deep spirit of the America. This explains why the Backlash cares about tax cuts in various ways “cancellation of the graduated income abolition of the estate reduction of the corporate taxes and so on; pursue a free-market policy and is widely committed to the deregulation of capitalism. [...]
[...] All this explains why Kansas has become one of the leading Backlash states in America, where the Republicans hope to make the Democratic Party powerless with the benediction of the Moderate Republicans who once affirmed loudly that they were for the separation of state and church, pro-choice and pro-gay rights. They did at several times affirm their differences like in 1996 as some of the Mods' voted for a democrat in the state legislature. But the so- called Republicans Only in Name (RINOs) were soon assimilated with the “liberals” and with time began to see the positive effects of conservative pro-business policies on the corporations they represent but also on their own career. [...]
[...] Frank shows us on the contrary that this is not what is happening, which proves that the Republican ideal of giving more power to the corporations is not profitable for the workers. Boeing is one of the leading Kansan industries and as such exerts much influence on the political class from Kansas. One should sometimes even speak of an exerting threat , Boeing once bargained with the State of Kansas and awaited from it more favors on the condition that it would have gone elsewhere. The State made therefore efforts to keep Boeing in Kansas and cut taxes, but Boeing did rationalize its production anyway. [...]
[...] Besides they naturally continue to apply their personal convictions which are typically oriented to the free-market. II. The political negligence of the economic issues and its consequences The revival of the Republican Party that has been made possible by its acquaintance with the Christian claims was not the only factor that led to a reorganization of the American political debate on cultural issues. In truth the Democrats are widely responsible for their current weakened party and one feel that Thomas Frank is quite angry with Bill Clinton for that. [...]
[...] Several biased inquiries have indeed been made in order to catch to what extent liberals voted for Democrats, but if one observes the media landscape and in particular the news media with among others the dominance of the really conservative Fox News, it becomes quite clear that this conspiracy theory as displaced the media supply and offer to the right. Frank's point is to break all these assertions down, in order to prove to the American people that they are obviously being manipulated which could be seen again as a conspiracy theory. [...]
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