During the euphoric period after the 2008 presidential election, I started to read What’s the Matter with Kansas? This is a book that I should have read when it first came out, but for some reason I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Ever since it came out in 2004, I had been hearing references to Thomas Frank’s book as I watched various political discussions on C-SPAN. But, as President Bush’s second term devolved into greater depths of cronyism and malfeasance, I opted instead for escapism and fantasy, with graphic novels and Harry Potter.
How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
The subtitle of the book is “How Conservatives Won the Heart of America.” Conservatives might have run away with America’s heart, but they left her mind on the side of the road. How else to explain how George Bush managed to get re-elected after starting an unnecessary war in Iraq and delivering very little to the stalwart cultural conservatives who supported him so mindlessly.
Tags: christian backlash, christian right, conservative populists, culture wars, what's the matter with kansas