What's the Matter with Kansas? (2004) is a book written by the American journalist and historian Thomas Frank, which explores how the US Republican Party gained political control in the American Midwest, and how the region has become increasingly socially and politically conservative.

Frank takes as his subject the state where he grew up, Kansas, which at the end of the 19th century was closely associated with a diverse range of social and progressive movements, but has since become overwhelmingly conservative and Republican, despite a consistent fall in the standard of living for working class and middle class Americans, particularly since the 1990s.

In the book, Frank examines what he calls "The Great Backlash", what he describes as a reactionary movement against the cultural changes of the 1960s and 1970s. According to his analysis, the political discourse of recent decades has dramatically shifted from the traditional leftist concept of class war, to one in which cultural issues are divisive and overtake genuine social and economic issues. Whereas once such issues were central to the political discourse in Kansas, now a host of moral issues (such as religion, abortion, and gun control) take precedence.

Frank also describes the rise of conservatism and the far right in the social and political landscape of Kansas. He finds extraordinary irony in the fact that working class and middle-class Kansans overwhelmingly support Republican laissez-faire capitalism, a system which benefits the state's social and economic elites, at the expense of their own social and economic interests. And although the social and economic condition of "average" Kansans has been disastrously weakened through their support for conservative social and economic policies, their reaction is to give yet more support to such policies.

Not long ago, Kansas would have responded to the current situation by making the bastards pay. This would have been a political certainty, as predictable as what happens when you touch a match to a puddle of gasoline. When business screwed the farmers and the workers - when it implemented monopoly strategies invasive beyond the Populists' furthest imaginings -- when it ripped off shareholders and casually tossed thousands out of work -- you could be damned sure about what would follow.

Not these days. Out here the gravity of discontent pulls in only one direction: to the right, to the right, further to the right. Strip today's Kansans of their job security, and they head out to become registered Republicans. Push them off their land, and next thing you know they're protesting in front of abortion clinics. Squander their life savings on manicures for the CEO, and there's a good chance they'll join the John Birch Society. But ask them about the remedies their ancestors proposed (unions, antitrust, public ownership), and you might as well be referring to the days when knighthood was in flower.

As of January 2005, What's the Matter with Kansas? has been on The New York Times Bestseller List for more than four months.

External link

• Publisher's webpage (Henry Holt and Co.)
• "What's right with Kansas" — A response by James Nuechterlein