Populism, Elitism and What I Haven't Done

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by Godless Dave

Have any of you read What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America by Thomas Frank? It's about this very issue.

I haven't read it, but I really liked this part of one person's critique of it there at Amazon:

It is obvious that Mr. Frank feels honestly and deeply saddened, puzzled, betrayed, and angered by what he believes has happened to Kansas, and also to "Kansas" -- the Republican Party and the United States as a whole -- over the past few decades. Perhaps most frustrating to Frank is his belief that the people of Kansas/"Kansas" are harming their own self interest by their behavior, and even more so by their stubborn refusal (as Frank sees it) to wake up and realize the error of their ways. Therein lies the major flaw of "What's The Matter With Kansas," and also the answer to the subtitle's implied question -- how DID Conservatives manage to "win the heart of America?"

As to the first question, "What's the Matter with Kansas," Frank's answer is that people are not voting their own interests. However, this is a purely economic analysis, and even there Frank's book falls short in explanatory value. The problem with Frank's analysis, aside from its overly anecdotal and non-empirical nature, is that human beings are not just economic beings ("Homo economicus"), but instead are a highly complicated species driven by a wide range of "rational" and "irrational" motivations, urges, desires, beliefs, and drives. Generally speaking, that's what the conservative movement understood many years ago, and that's what the liberal movement -- or what's left of it -- failed to understand on a true, gut level.

No doubt, at first glance it appears wildly paradoxical, even irrational, for people to vote against their own economic self interest. What if, however, other more subjective interests -- faith, nationalism, traditionalism -- outweigh the more objective economic ones? What if, in other words, Marx was completely wrong -- as he was in so many other ways -- in believing that economic class interests trumped all others?
Perhaps Marx might have asked himself, "what's wrong with my theory" instead of "what's wrong with the people who won't follow my theory?" And perhaps Thomas Frank and the Democratic Party should ask themselves the same question.

In other words, instead of waiting for the (supposed) fatal flaws and inherent contractions of the Republican coalition -- Wall Street bankers, poor working folks, fundamentalists and libertarians -- to self destruct of its own accord, perhaps the Democratic Party and progressive movement in general should ask themselves what THEY can do to "Win the Heart of America." If not, my guess is that conservative Republicans will keep on winning that heart, while liberal/progressive Democrats will keep losing it.

As a proud progressive Democrat myself, I say that it's time to start winning for a change. Perhaps the first step is to stop talking about what's the matter with Kansas/"Kansas," about what an evil, nasty, cynical bunch the Republicans are, and about how deluded and stupid those "Kansans" are to vote the way they do. Instead, Democrats might want to start talking about how they can appeal to "Kansas," and about how they can win back "Kansans'" hearts and votes. If not, the Democratic Party risks being carried away by a political twister, never to return to Kansas - or "Kansas" - again.