Two americas

Sandy…that’s EXACTLY what his point was. Patrick Martin missed the point completely.

Bill Clinton wanted to be the left-wing Reagan. Wouldn’t you say? He was after those same voters.

Also:

"Thomas Frank wrote a best-selling book four years ago (What’s the Matter with Kansas?), which examined this process in his home state, and his conclusions about the use of coded appeals to religion to induce voters to ignore their own economic interests have become conventional wisdom in ruling class political and media circles.

"While Frank’s book had certain insights into American culture and politics, he ignored the most fundamental factor enabling the Republican appeals to prejudice and backwardness to produce electoral successes—the drastic shift by the Democratic Party to the right and its abandonment of any policies to alleviate economic inequality or improve living conditions for working people.

—Patrick Martin, "US media, Clinton assail Obama for ‘bitter’ truth, World Socialist Web Site, 14 April 2008.

Thomas Frank  is a genius!

Reminds me of this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-America/dp/0805073396

"The largely blue collar citizens of Kansas can be counted upon to be a "red" state in any election, voting solidly Republican and possessing a deep animosity toward the left. This, according to author Thomas Frank, is a pretty self-defeating phenomenon, given that the policies of the Republican Party benefit the wealthy and powerful at the great expense of the average worker. According to Frank, the conservative establishment has tricked Kansans, playing up the emotional touchstones of conservatism and perpetuating a sense of a vast liberal empire out to crush traditional values while barely ever discussing the Republicans’ actual economic policies and what they mean to the working class. Thus the pro-life Kansas factory worker who listens to Rush Limbaugh will repeatedly vote for the party that is less likely to protect his safety, less likely to protect his job, and less likely to benefit him economically. To much of America, Kansas is an abstract, "where Dorothy wants to return. Where Superman grew up." But Frank, a native Kansan, separates reality from myth in What’s the Matter with Kansas and tells the state’s socio-political history from its early days as a hotbed of leftist activism to a state so entrenched in conservatism that the only political division remaining is between the moderate and more-extreme right wings of the same party. Frank, the founding editor of The Baffler and a contributor to Harper’s and The Nation, knows the state and its people. He even includes his own history as a young conservative idealist turned disenchanted college Republican, and his first-hand experience, combined with a sharp wit and thorough reasoning, makes his book more credible than the elites of either the left and right who claim to understand Kansas. —John Moe"

they are putting those scholars in a bad position with that kind of request

wow…