Reply #77: Saw him on C-Span

[LunaC]

and he was AWESOME! I was wracking my brain this morning for his name so THANK YOU for bringing it up. I'm going to buy his book now.......

Blurb from Amazon.com:

With his acclaimed wit and acuity, Thomas Frank turns his eye on what he calls the “thirty-year backlash”—the populist revolt against a
supposedly liberal establishment. The high point of that backlash is the Republican Party’s success in building the most unnatural of
alliances: between blue-collar Midwesterners and Wall Street business interests, workers and bosses, populists and right-wingers.

In asking “what ’s the matter with Kansas?”—how a place famous for its radicalism became one of the most conservative states in the
union—Frank, a native Kansan and onetime Republican, seeks to answer some broader American riddles: Why do so many of us vote
against our economic interests? Where’s the outrage at corporate manipulators? And whatever happened to middle-American
progressivism? The questions are urgent as well as provocative. Frank answers them by examining pop conservatism—the bestsellers,
the radio talk shows, the vicious political combat—and showing how our long culture wars have left us with an electorate far more
concerned with their leaders’ “values” and down-home qualities than with their stands on hard questions of policy.

A brilliant analysis—and funny to boot—What’s the Matter with Kansas? presents a critical assessment of who we are, while telling a
remarkable story of how a group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs came to convince a nation that they spoke on behalf of the People.


Honestly, folks, this guy nailed it!