What's the Matter with Kansas? Some thoughts..

[trumptman]

The book What's the Matter with Kansas (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?isbn=0805073396&itm=1), while I haven't gotten to read it, I'm very familiar with the premise of it, or at least I thought I was and so I thought I would ask some questions of those who have read it.

The premise of the book, as I have understood it is that that Republicans with their various wedge issues have tricked the folks in Kansas into voting against their economic self-interest.

Editorial reviews and reviews where Frank himself states the purpose of the book had me believing I understood where the book is coming from with what it argues.

Example (http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2004/apr/25/whats_the_matter/)

Frank answers the question by blaming the "Great Backlash," a post-1980s form of conservatism that uses hot-button issues such as abortion, gun control and un-Christian art to elect candidates who, once they're in office, blindly serve the interests of big business. And big business, Frank argues, is no friend of the family farmer, the Garden City meatpacker or the Wichita aircraft worker.

The reason this struck me as so strange is because I just finished reading "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote. (http://http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679745580/104-4847831-4417543?v=glance&n=283155) Within the book I was very much struck by the language and phrasing within this section of the book describing Garden City and the citizens there.



Without exception, Garden Citians deny that the population of the town can be socially graded ("No, sir. Nothing like that here. All equal, regardless of wealth, color or creed. Everything the way it ought to be in a democracy; that's us"), but of course, class distinctions are as clearly observed, and as clearly observable, as in any other human hive. A hundred miles west and one would be out of the "Bible Belt," that gospel-haunted strip of American territory in which a man must, if only for business reasons, take his religion with the straightest of faces, but in Finney County one is still within the Bible Belt borders and therefore a persons's church affiliation is the most important factor influencing his class status. A combination of Baptists, Methodists and Roman Catholics would account for eighty percent of the county's devout, yet among the elite - the businessmen, bankers, lawyers, physicians and more prominenet ranchers who tenant the top drawer-Presbyterians and Episcopalians predominate. An occasional Methodist is welcomed, and once in a while a Democrat infiltrates, but on the whole the Establishment is composed of right-wing Republicans of the Presbyterians and Eposcopalians faiths.

Those words are Truman Capote's description of a 1959 Kansas. Frank claims the populist backlash began with Reagan, but I found this link (http://www.thegreenpapers.com/Hx/72-96.html) that shows that since 1972, Kansas has voted Republican regardless of who was running.

So do I have Frank wrong, or does Frank have Kansas wrong?

Also for those of us who were 'ehem... alive in the 80's and before, we remember that many of those "hot button issues" were not so hot or...um...buttony back then. It was changes within the Democratic Party that occurred, not Republicans exploiting some wedge issues. Al Gore and Jessie Jackson have an inconvenient truth to face in that they were BOTH pro-life supporters for extended periods of time. People forget that Tipper Gore helped create the PMRC in response to songs out at the time which were "Like a Virgin" by Madonna, a pretty clear example of "un-Christian art."

What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person and what kind of a society will we have 20 years hence if life can be taken so casually? It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system, and our mind-set with regard to the nature and worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on earth.
- Rev. Jesse Jackson, 1977 (current pro-abortion advocate)


Al Gore, before he switch his position to run for president had an 84% pro-life voting record.

I keep looking at examples like that and thinking.. where is the trickery? The people didn't leave the party, the party has left the people. The Republicans didn't "trick" people into electing them to the majority, rather the Democrats have keep throwing people out until there was no one left to vote for them. They've thrown out white men, anyone religious (Catholics being the most recent casualty), etc.

The most interesting next take on this will probably be Joseph Lierberman. A guy who has gone from Vice-Presidential candidate 6 years ago to someone who might not even win his primary all based on his position on Iraq.

It isn't dirty tricks when you toss the people and their positions out of your party and then watch as they go vote for someone else.

Something to think about...

Nick

[hardeeharhar]

You keep arguing this whole the democrats have left the people tack, and its honestly no different for the republicans...

the political demographics of the people change, nick.

Surprise, surprise.

[addabox]

OK, let's stop right here.

You constantly allude to the idea that the Democratic Party is "against white men".

How? Where? By what mechanism? Via which communiqués?

Please share your evidence that the Democratic Party is against white men, or your premise is entirely unfounded.

Here are some helpful hints: linking to individuals who hold white men in low esteem, or have the temerity to note that white men, as a class, still hold disproportionate access to wealth and power in the US, does not support the notion that "the Democratic Party is against white men".

Demonstrating that the Democratic Party has among its professed members individuals who think white men are the devil, or should be driven from the face of the earth, does not make the case, any more than I could reasonably assert that the Republican Party is the party of white supremacism, neo-Nazi sympathizers, and holocaust deniers (which, by the way, is the kind of guilt by association that always draws your ire).

So how about it? Instead of just blithely repeating your old canard about how the Dems hate everybody, how about some evidence?

[groverat]

I think ShawnJ truly hit the nail on the head here.

[BRussell]

Originally posted by trumptman
Also for those of us who were 'ehem... alive in the 80's and before, we remember that many of those "hot button issues" were not so hot or...um...buttony back then. It was changes within the Democratic Party that occurred, not Republicans exploiting some wedge issues. Al Gore and Jessie Jackson have an inconvenient truth to face in that they were BOTH pro-life supporters for extended periods of time. The Republican party platform, and the majority of individual Republican politicians, support a "Human Life Amendment" that would make abortion illegal throughout the country, with an exception only to save the life of the mother. About 20% of the country supports that.

The Democratic platform, and the vast majority of individual Democratic politicians, support Roe v. Wade. Two-thirds of the country supports Roe v. Wade.

Who left whom?

[Fireball1244]

The leader of the Democratic delegation in the Senate is pro-life. How many pro-choice members are there in the Republican's leadership?

At the Texas Democratic Convention, the Pro-Life Democrats were a recognized caucus, and had a booth at the convention. So did the local state NRA. At the Texas Republican Convention, the gay Republican group was denied the ability to rent a booth or hold a meeting of their caucus, which is not recognized by the state as a legitimate group within the Republican Party.

Be careful about throwing around charges of ideological intolerance. You may find that the party you think has a 'big tent' doesn't really have one at all.

[trumptman]

Originally posted by hardeeharhar
You keep arguing this whole the democrats have left the people tack, and its honestly no different for the republicans...

the political demographics of the people change, nick.

Surprise, surprise.

Well while the demographics of the people might change, in almost all instances what they have changed from and to is Democratic to Republican.

Has Lieberman left the party or is the party leaving him? We are talking about a guy who was your VP nominee six years ago.

And it is different for Republicans. Republicans have gone from being a minority party to having majorities or near majorities in all three federal branches. It isn't like both parties have just had different interest groups switch out and remained the same size.

Originally posted by ShawnJ
Read the book.

I'll be happy to if someone wants to donate it to me. I don't see the point in wasting money on something where the initial premise is so flawed though.

Originally posted by addabox
OK, let's stop right here.

You constantly allude to the idea that the Democratic Party is "against white men".

How? Where? By what mechanism? Via which communiqués?


If you want to "stop right there" realize that you want to ignore the topic of conversation. You are welcome to start a thread concerning this matter. My contention in this thread has been that those who are Republicans have not been duped or tricked into voting for Republicans. That is the contention made within the Frank book. He contends that those who have left the Democratic party (which appears not to be anyone in Kansas since they have always been solidly Republican) have been fed lies, tricked and are actually voting to harm themselves.

Why is it so hard for Democrats to believe that they don't have the "one true answer" for everything? I mean they treat their policy as more infallible than Catholics believe the Pope to be. Anyone who doesn't vote with them either did and there was voter fraud or didn't and has something the matter with them. Can't Democrats come up with a rationale for someone not to vote for them that doesn't involve high crimes or insanity?

Originally posted by BRussell
The Republican party platform, and the majority of individual Republican politicians, support a "Human Life Amendment" that would make abortion illegal throughout the country, with an exception only to save the life of the mother. About 20% of the country supports that.

The Democratic platform, and the vast majority of individual Democratic politicians, support Roe v. Wade. Two-thirds of the country supports Roe v. Wade.

Who left whom?

This get hard to get around because of so much flawed polling in this area. Roe v. Wade is continually misrepresented when being polled to draw more support than it actually solicits.

Here is a very recent Harris Poll for example. (http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=659)

First note that the two thirds support, even for the misrepresented Roe v. Wade isn't there. However the poll NEVER states what Roe truly allows which is abortion without restriction through the first five and a half months of pregnancy and with restriction all the way through the to the day before delivery.

Find me the accurate description of Roe that polls like you mention. Additionally look at the support for abortion with some restrictions. If a person wants to restrict abortion to instances of rape, incest, etc. they have to go into grouping of supporting abortion with some restrictions.

All that aside, when abortion is brought up in a political conversation and someone like Al Gore leaves behind is pro-life position, and the Kansans who previously voted pro-life and still do vote pro-life no longer find a way to support him. Is there "something the matter" with them? Were they duped or is the reality that they have believed and voted as they always have?

The contention is that Kansas was once very populist and is only conservative due to foul play. How hard is it to bring up votes on the subjects Democrats claim to support, and even bash Republicans with but ultimately do not want addressed via the legislature? One of the most effective strategies Republicans have been using lately is bringing up votes on subjects Democrats have been claiming to support. The vote on withdrawal was very smart politically. Republicans ought to do this on many more matters. It allows them to pin down the true lack of populism inherent in the Democratic position.

Democrats desire to bash from a position (say homosexual marriage for example) but in the end really don't care to vote FOR IT. They really don't even care to support it and would actually just prefer a court mandate it so they don't have to go on record one way or another. If Kansas or other similarly "insane" states truly are duped populists the party isn't going to win them back by hiding their positions and hoping for court wins instead of being willing to take a position and vote for it.

Originally posted by Fireball1244
The leader of the Democratic delegation in the Senate is pro-life. How many pro-choice members are there in the Republican's leadership?

At the Texas Democratic Convention, the Pro-Life Democrats were a recognized caucus, and had a booth at the convention. So did the local state NRA. At the Texas Republican Convention, the gay Republican group was denied the ability to rent a booth or hold a meeting of their caucus, which is not recognized by the state as a legitimate group within the Republican Party.

Be careful about throwing around charges of ideological intolerance. You may find that the party you think has a 'big tent' doesn't really have one at all.

I can't speak for Texas. I can tell you though that when I attended the Republican National Convention there were pro-choice delegations and booths allowed and that this was also true for the Log Cabin Republicans as well.

Good to see you back.

Nick

[groverat]

Originally posted by trumptman
I'll be happy to if someone wants to donate it to me. I don't see the point in wasting money on something where the initial premise is so flawed though.

Where the premise you have invented for it is flawed, you mean to say.

You haven't read the book, you don't know what it says. I have read the book and you saying "Frank claims the populist backlash began with Reagan" is laughable. It's like me never reading "Crime & Punishment" and being angry that it celebrates nihilism and advocates violent crime.

Believe me, he knows Kansas voting patterns. He did a little work for the book and he's a fairly smart guy.

[hardeeharhar]

Originally posted by trumptman
Well while the demographics of the people might change, in almost all instances what they have changed from and to is Democratic to Republican.

Has Lieberman left the party or is the party leaving him? We are talking about a guy who was your VP nominee six years ago.

And it is different for Republicans. Republicans have gone from being a minority party to having majorities or near majorities in all three federal branches. It isn't like both parties have just had different interest groups switch out and remained the same size.

Lieberman has always been conservative. He has always called himself a fiscal conservative, and a social liberal. Unfortunately, his recent actions wrt the war on terrah (tm), suggest that his social liberalism is purchasable. Eh? Good riddance.

What you are seeing is the rise of the conservative religious voter and groups of white men that feel like they are being oppressed. (It's hard to say that last part with a straight face). Religion was nearly absent in voting trends before, say, roe v wade. That decision and the CC selling of it has dislodged religiosity from an at home tradition to an everywhere all the time in your face tradition - and they vote. Second is the white man's peril, but really we don't need to discuss this, since it was Nixon's shear political brilliance in passing the Affirmative Action programs that caused this shift in demographics. Why the democrats get blamed for the negative aspects of AA, I will never know...

[groverat]

Originally posted by ShawnJ
2) you're attacking it with a cliché. (party left the people)

You call it a cliché, he calls it a valid philosophical and political idealogy. :)

[trumptman]

Originally posted by groverat
Where the premise you have invented for it is flawed, you mean to say.

I quoted his explanation of the premise of the book. I don't consider that to be fabricated. If you also believe the publisher of the book and the editorial reviewer of the book are inventing the exact same premise then I suppose that is your problem as well.

You haven't read the book, you don't know what it says. I have read the book and you saying "Frank claims the populist backlash began with Reagan" is laughable.

So I guess me quoting Frank about his book is laughable. The "Great Backlash" is mentioned by him, by the publisher, by the editorial reviews.

The excerpt available at Barnes and Noble makes the same point..

EXCERPT
From What’s the Matter with Kansas?:
Hard times, instead of snapping people back to reality, only seem to stoke the fires of the conservative backlash. Indeed, those segments of the working class that have been hardest hit by the big economic changes of recent years are the very ones that vote Republican in the greatest numbers. We seem to have but one way to express our anger, and that’s by raging along with Rush—against liberal bias in academia, liberal softness on terrorism, liberal permissiveness, and so on. Our reaction to hard times is thus to hand over ever more power to the people who make them hard. In fact, the election of 2002 provided a perverse incentive to the men who gave us the dot-com bubble and the Enron fiasco: Keep at it. The more you screw the public over, the more they will clamor to cut your taxes. The more you cheat and steal, the angrier they will become—at the liberal media that expose your cheating and stealing.

Believe me, he knows Kansas voting patterns. He did a little work for the book and he's a fairly smart guy.

Worster, a professor at Kansas University and another fairly smart guy did take issue with the Frank assertion and noted that Kansas has voted reliably Republican since Lincoln and that only Utah has possibly been more reliably Republican.

I posted a link that showed that Kansas still voted for Ford even after Nixon resigned and had Ford pardon him. Kansas still voted for the first Bush even in the midst of a national recession. We could even think it odd that Kansas voted against Clinton the second time when in 1996 the economy was doing quite well but considering Dole, their native son and Senator was running, it is understood.

Where is this trend prior to the 80's of voting progressive and then bring tricked?

Nick

[trumptman]

Originally posted by ShawnJ
It'll be educational.

Grab an iced caramel latte made with fair trade coffee and read it at a bookstore.

Just keep in mind that:

1) you're criticizing a book that you haven't read and
2) you're attacking it with a cliché. (party left the people)

I don't drink coffee but exactly how ironic do you think I can tolerate being. I mean drinking fair trade coffee while cheating the author out of his due for writing the book.:lol: Not all of us have the wonderful mindset to tolerate law school you know.;)

As for attacking it with a cliche, I'm applying a generalization because the author claims to be using Kansas as a microcosm of what is happening nationally. Perhaps it is cliche to say that the Democratic party has gotten smaller, lost power and elections and they have done this while becoming more strident about the message the members of the party must buy into or leave. But cliche doesn't mean wrong. It just means overused saying or unoriginal thought. I don't really care if my contention is considered overused or unoriginal by you. Your writing critiques, while humorous are sadly not persuasive and do not invalidate my point.

Nick

[BRussell]

Originally posted by trumptman
This get hard to get around because of so much flawed polling in this area. Roe v. Wade is continually misrepresented when being polled to draw more support than it actually solicits.

Here is a very recent Harris Poll for example. (http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=659)

First note that the two thirds support, even for the misrepresented Roe v. Wade isn't there. However the poll NEVER states what Roe truly allows which is abortion without restriction through the first five and a half months of pregnancy and with restriction all the way through the to the day before delivery.

Find me the accurate description of Roe that polls like you mention. Additionally look at the support for abortion with some restrictions. If a person wants to restrict abortion to instances of rape, incest, etc. they have to go into grouping of supporting abortion with some restrictions.

All that aside, when abortion is brought up in a political conversation and someone like Al Gore leaves behind is pro-life position, and the Kansans who previously voted pro-life and still do vote pro-life no longer find a way to support him. Is there "something the matter" with them? Were they duped or is the reality that they have believed and voted as they always have?

The contention is that Kansas was once very populist and is only conservative due to foul play. How hard is it to bring up votes on the subjects Democrats claim to support, and even bash Republicans with but ultimately do not want addressed via the legislature? One of the most effective strategies Republicans have been using lately is bringing up votes on subjects Democrats have been claiming to support. The vote on withdrawal was very smart politically. Republicans ought to do this on many more matters. It allows them to pin down the true lack of populism inherent in the Democratic position.

Democrats desire to bash from a position (say homosexual marriage for example) but in the end really don't care to vote FOR IT. They really don't even care to support it and would actually just prefer a court mandate it so they don't have to go on record one way or another. If Kansas or other similarly "insane" states truly are duped populists the party isn't going to win them back by hiding their positions and hoping for court wins instead of being willing to take a position and vote for it. I was going by this poll summary site (http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion.htm) and searched on Roe. Repeatedly, when people are simply asked "Turning to abortion: Would you like to see the Supreme Court overturn its 1973 Roe versus Wade decision concerning abortion, or not?," 2/3 of people say no and 25% say yes. That's not misrepresenting anything (nor do I think the poll you cited is misrepresenting Roe).

Furthermore, if you simply ask people, as Gallup has been doing for years, "With respect to the abortion issue, would you consider yourself to be pro-choice or pro-life?," the majority of Americans, c. 55-45%, say they're pro-choice. I'm sorry, but there's no escaping the fact that Americans agree with Democrats over Republicans on abortion, and given that, your suggestion that the Democratic party left the American people on abortion just doesn't make sense.

I think it's probably true that pro-lifers are much more likely to vote on that issue than pro-choicers, probably because pro-choicers are in the status-quo and pro-lifers want to see things changed. And perhaps that's where this "rev up the base with divisive issues" theory comes from. If the Republicans can get 95% of single-issue abortion voters out for them, they're a good part of the way to that 1% victory they have been able to get for the past several election cycles.

[BRussell]

BTW, I believe it was shetline who started a thread about this book last year, and at the time I was somewhat critical of the basic point. To argue basically that people are stupid for voting their values is wrong. I personally am a values voter - I prefer liberal values over conservative ones, it's really as simple as that.

Democrats have to be willing to use their own wedge issues. Sure, it will mean taking politics even further downhill, but you have to fight with what works.

[groverat]

trumptman:

I quoted his explanation of the premise of the book.

You quoted a reviewer's explanation of the premise of the book.
Dave Ranney is a different person than Thomas Frank.

Again, I have read the book.
I know what the book says, because I have read it.

Strange idea, eh?

So I guess me quoting Frank about his book is laughable. The "Great Backlash" is mentioned by him, by the publisher, by the editorial reviews.

It is mentioned, sure, and it's even a key part of the book, but your assertion that Frank claims the "populist backlash began with Reagan" is completely unsupported in the book that you haven't read but want to pretend to be an authority on.

Please show me an excerpt from the book or a quote from Frank that supports your ludicrous assertion that "Frank claims the populist backlash began with Reagan".

Look at the first sentence from the excerpt you post, for Christ's sake. You don't stoke a fire into existence, you stoke a fire that's already burning.

Worster, a professor at Kansas University and another fairly smart guy did take issue with the Frank assertion and noted that Kansas has voted reliably Republican since Lincoln and that only Utah has possibly been more reliably Republican.

When has Frank ever argued otherwise? When?

It is such a myopic and childlike viewpoint that is actually incapable of seeing any argument beyond the Republican/Democrat political infighting context. The book isn't about a shift from voting Democrat to voting Republican (a fiction completely fabricated in your mind), it is about the people of Kansas being conditioned to vote against their own best interests on myriad policies, especially economic.

You haven't read the book. You have no idea what you're talking about.

[addabox]

http://www.workingforchange.com/webgraphics/WFC/TMW06-28-06.jpg

[BRussell]

I thought it was pretty much agreed that Nixon was the founder of this Republican strategy in the 1970s. Democrats had dominated throughout the first half of the 20th century, and then Eisenhower wasn't really a conservative.

One thing that's odd about the choice of Kansas as symbolic is that this strategy is also called the "Southern Strategy," and in fact the only real reversal that's occurred in American politics is the South: It used to be overwhelmingly Democratic, and now it's overwhelmingly Republican.

[groverat]

Frank didn't choose Kansas, he was raised there. :)

[trumptman]

Originally posted by BRussell
I was going by this poll summary site (http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion.htm) and searched on Roe. Repeatedly, when people are simply asked "Turning to abortion: Would you like to see the Supreme Court overturn its 1973 Roe versus Wade decision concerning abortion, or not?," 2/3 of people say no and 25% say yes. That's not misrepresenting anything (nor do I think the poll you cited is misrepresenting Roe).


I still don't think that fully representative because there are folks who have privacy concerns and Roe is considered the basis for the privacy right that has been read into the Constitution.

It is possible to be a privacy advocate and still be pro-life as well.

Furthermore, if you simply ask people, as Gallup has been doing for years, "With respect to the abortion issue, would you consider yourself to be pro-choice or pro-life?," the majority of Americans, c. 55-45%, say they're pro-choice. I'm sorry, but there's no escaping the fact that Americans agree with Democrats over Republicans on abortion, and given that, your suggestion that the Democratic party left the American people on abortion just doesn't make sense.

First pro-choice is not the same as pro-abortion. It is clear that wording within polls can drastically alter the results. However that said it isn't as if it the figures started out 100-0 and then flipped to 0-100. In the 70's timeframe we are talking about the Democrats had 60+% of the seats in the House. (1974 they had 66% for example) Anything that helps erode this massive majority constitutes a leaving of the party.

I think it's probably true that pro-lifers are much more likely to vote on that issue than pro-choicers, probably because pro-choicers are in the status-quo and pro-lifers want to see things changed. And perhaps that's where this "rev up the base with divisive issues" theory comes from. If the Republicans can get 95% of single-issue abortion voters out for them, they're a good part of the way to that 1% victory they have been able to get for the past several election cycles.

While you may view it this way, I do think that the Republicans have stitched together a group that has a firmer basis as a party. To me the Democrats aren't even really a party anymore. They appear to be nothing more than single issue folks who happen to lay together rather than apart. Unions, feminists, antiwar folks, African-Americans... no one can figure how to get them on the same page because there isn't an ideal beyond opposition to Republicans that unifies them.

Perhaps this is why voting for a belief more than just a income redistribution scheme seems almost insane to them.

Nick

[hardeeharhar]

Originally posted by trumptman
I still don't think that fully representative because there are folks who have privacy concerns and Roe is considered the basis for the privacy right that has been read into the Constitution.
Nick

Bzzzzzzzzz!

Sorry, would you care to play (1890) (http://www.lawrence.edu/fast/BOARDMAW/Privacy_brand_warr2.html) again? (http://atheism.about.com/library/decisions/indexes/bldec_PrivacyIndex.htm)

[shetline]

Originally posted by hardeeharhar
Sorry, would you care to play (1890) (http://www.lawrence.edu/fast/BOARDMAW/Privacy_brand_warr2.html) again? (http://atheism.about.com/library/decisions/indexes/bldec_PrivacyIndex.htm)
No need to worry. There are plenty of people who'd like to see Griswold vs. Connecticut reversed too.

I think I finally get how it is that so many people who say they're for smaller government can also want the government to be so involved in controlling our sex lives -- they want a government small enough to sneak into your bedroom at night.

[trumptman]

Originally posted by groverat
trumptman:



You quoted a reviewer's explanation of the premise of the book.
Dave Ranney is a different person than Thomas Frank.

Again, I have read the book.
I know what the book says, because I have read it.

Strange idea, eh?

Not strange but it says something very sad about your comprehension and reasoning abilities. How about a direct quote from the author himself on his own website. Perhaps you can write him and tell him how wrong he is about his own book.

Q&A with Thomas Frank posted at his official website (http://www.tcfrank.com/qna.html)

Q. One of the words you use a lot in the book is “backlash.” You talk about “the Great Backlash,” “backlash conservatism,” and a “backlash mentality.” What do you mean by this?

A. By “backlash” I mean populist conservatism of the kind pioneered in the Sixties by George Wallace and Richard Nixon, perfected by Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, and crafted into an entertainment form by Fox News. Instead of selling conservative politics on economic grounds, it imagines conservatism as a revolt of the little people against a high and mighty liberal elite. Its object is to fight back against artists who dip crosses in urine, Hollywood stars who wear outrageous clothes, Ivy League journalists who slant the news, and snob judges who remove Ten Commandments monuments from the parks, and so on. The “Great Backlash” refers to the long ascendancy of this style of conservatism, ever since 1968. The “backlash mentality” refers to the culture of the movement, to the way its members view the world we live in.

The backlash is so commonplace and so universal today that it’s sometimes difficult to remember how strange and how historically recent it is. Before the Sixties, the working class was something conservatives wanted nothing to do with; today conservatives talk about the honest, hard-working people of “red America” as though they were the GOP’s natural constituency, while ignoring the nuts and bolts of economic issues.

It is mentioned, sure, and it's even a key part of the book, but your assertion that Frank claims the "populist backlash began with Reagan" is completely unsupported in the book that you haven't read but want to pretend to be an authority on.

You seem to be suffering from some sort of mental disorder. You've taken the words above assigned them to me twice and even included quotes in an attempt to make them my actual words. Yet I go back and look through all the posts and don't see anywhere where I said it began in 1980 or with Reagan. I said I was looking at the trends in the 70's to see if they were different from the 80's with regard to Kansas. Reagan's election did bring about a severe change in the national political scene and the Republicans that rode his coattails did lower the Democratic control of Congress to less than 60% in the House. I did note how Democrats began altering their own views nationally in the 80's with regard to abortion, moral values, etc. and how this could have led to further erosion that eventually led to Republican control in 1994.

That said I would really appreciate it if you tried the quote function from now on.

When has Frank ever argued otherwise? When?

His backlash doesn't use the convenient party labels which is why I suppose you couldn't understand it.

It is such a myopic and childlike viewpoint that is actually incapable of seeing any argument beyond the Republican/Democrat political infighting context. The book isn't about a shift from voting Democrat to voting Republican (a fiction completely fabricated in your mind), it is about the people of Kansas being conditioned to vote against their own best interests on myriad policies, especially economic.

You haven't read the book. You have no idea what you're talking about.

Can you comprehend the word populists? Frank is arguing that the populists have moved nationally from the Democratic party to the Republican party. He thinks this wrong because these ordinary people seem concerned with something other than money and as a result don't automatically vote for which ever party promises to redistribute the maximum possible income. This is why he thinks there is something the matter with them.

Why is it that BRussell can understand the point, that being a values voter isn't stupid, and you can't? Why is it that he can address the points being made in this thread. You do nothing but attack me personally? I suppose that is to cover your own shortcomings.

Nick

[trumptman]

Originally posted by hardeeharhar
Bzzzzzzzzz!

Sorry, would you care to play (1890) (http://www.lawrence.edu/fast/BOARDMAW/Privacy_brand_warr2.html) again? (http://atheism.about.com/library/decisions/indexes/bldec_PrivacyIndex.htm)

You do realize that you second link mentions Roe v. Wade as a case that further developed the privacy right don't you?

Perhaps you don't and that is why, sadly, you don't realize you have made my point for me.

Nick

[hardeeharhar]

Originally posted by trumptman
You do realize that you second link mentions Roe v. Wade as a case that further developed the privacy right don't you?

Perhaps you don't and that is why, sadly, you don't realize you have made my point for me.

Nick

Let's see what you said earlier:

Originally posted by trumptman
I still don't think that fully representative because there are folks who have privacy concerns and Roe is considered the basis for the privacy right that has been read into the Constitution.
Nick

Basis for the privacy right... hmm...

Well, I guess you are your own worse enemy today (see ShawnJ's post above)...

[trumptman]

Originally posted by ShawnJ
Um.





You have Frank wrong.

Get over it.

You have life wrong. Perhaps someday you'll enjoy paying for it.

Frank's own quotes and answers about his own book are not wrong. You and grove can enjoy pleasuring yourselves while arguing word selection and sentence deconstruction instead of the actual thought.

Do you prefer 1980 is when they began having an effect on electoral outcomes, as opposed to just began?

Who really cares what you prefer though because you add nothing. Go stick your nose somewhere else.

Q. You say that you have a special, personal insight into the backlash mentality. How so?

A. I grew up in suburban Kansas City, a place where the backlash grievance is sometimes second nature, and as a schoolboy in the Seventies and Eighties I embraced the backlash worldview with the zealotry of a true believer. I was a Reagan youth. So I believe I understand the sense of frustration from which the backlash arises and the fundamentally decent democratic impulses—the hair-trigger suspicion of “elites,” for example—that it builds upon. My subsequent personal experiences, such as my later turn to the left, are also why I persist in believing that many backlash voters can be brought back to the liberal fold. That is, they could if there were any politicians out there willing to make the effort.


Q. How did liberals let all this happen, and what can they do to remedy the situation?

A. There is no doubt that liberals bear a lot of the blame for the backlash. Back in the Sixties and Seventies, Democratic Party leaders decided to turn their backs on the working-class voters who until then had been the party’s central constituency, and to try to find a new constituency in groups like college students, environmentalists, and so on. They called this the “New Politics,” and it was a terrible mistake. Among other things, it is one of the sources of the “liberal elite” stereotype, in a historical sense. And while there have been numerous Democrats who have tried to resurrect the alliance with the working class over the years, the dominant, Clinton wing of the party clings to this failed strategy. They essentially agree with the Republicans on economic issues, write off the working class, and try instead to win the votes (and the campaign contributions) of educated, professional people by taking liberal stands on social issues. Their idea of politics is a war of enlightened CEOs versus backwards CEOs.

Add something or get ignored.

Nick

[trumptman]

Originally posted by hardeeharhar
Let's see what you said earlier:



Basis for the privacy right... hmm...

Well, I guess you are your own worse enemy today (see ShawnJ's post above)...

I suppose you can't realize that a link to an article in Harvard Law Review is not the same thing as a Supreme Court decision.

Also I didn't say it was the ONLY Supreme Court Decision or even the first. It is the basis though of what many consider our modern privacy right in that it doesn't just deal with what we buy but our actions with our own bodies. It did significantly advance the privacy right and I simply desired to put across that there are parties who could be pro-privacy and pro-life.

Nick

[groverat]

You've taken the words above assigned them to me twice and even included quotes in an attempt to make them my actual words. Yet I go back and look through all the posts and don't see anywhere where I said it began in 1980 or with Reagan.

I see it in your first post.

Let me post a picture!
http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/6020/trumptisanimbecile0qa.png

I have read the book. You have not read the book. You do not know what you are talking about.

Let me say this again:
You have not read this book, I have.

I have read the book.

I have read the book.

[giant]

Originally posted by trumptman
I'll be happy to if someone wants to donate it to me. I don't see the point in wasting money on something where the initial premise is so flawed though.
So get it through a library.

[trumptman]

Originally posted by groverat
I see it in your first post.

Let me post a picture!
http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/6020/trumptisanimbecile0qa.png

I have read the book. You have not read the book. You do not know what you are talking about.

Let me say this again:
You have not read this book, I have.

I have read the book.

I have read the book.

I'm glad you have read the book. I'll add you to ignore until you can add something besides that to the discussion.

Nick

Edit: I just discovered something wonderful. Groverat can't be ignored. I supposed I'll just have to use the old fashioned method.

[trumptman]

Originally posted by giant
So get it through a library.

Good point. I'll check it out today, read it tonight, and watch the same idiots claim the same authority to dismiss tomorrow.

Because that is really Frank's point. You can't possible be authoritative unless you believe as he believes. When you don't come to the same conclusion there is something wrong with you.

Nick

[Chucker]

Originally posted by trumptman
Edit: I just discovered something wonderful. Groverat can't be ignored. I supposed I'll just have to use the old fashioned method.

And the impossibility of ignoring a moderator is surprising how?

[Chucker]

Originally posted by trumptman
Because that is really Frank's point.

I love how you keep claiming to know "Frank's point" without having read, y'know, Frank's point.

[groverat]

Feel free to start another thread when you read the book, now you're just lashing out like an angry little kid and you need to go take a nap.