"What's the Matter with Kansas?"

"What's the Matter With Kansas" by Thomas Frank, attempts to answer it's own question by showing the irony of Kansas voting conversative, because by doing so it hurts itself. The author hopes to also provide a blue print to understanding this scenario throughout the rest of the United States.

To support this idea, Frank elaborates on several issues, showing that Social Conservatives vote against their own economic issues, because they either hold social issues in more esteem, or they are being "duped" into not seeing economic issues politically at all.

Frank is clearly not attempting to be bipartisan. He claims conservatives always complain and point the finger at the liberals - "latte liberals" at that. But Democrat's don't get too comfortable. Frank's views tend to point liberal, but not Democrat. He bashes both Democrats and Republicans, because they both fail to benefit their constituents.

Frank is critical of politics in general and attempts to expose what is actually happening. Not exactly a first in political writing. However, he paints an interesting picture of Kansas' economic state.

Economically, Kansas has collapsed due to the removal of governmental regulations and help. For example, Frank uses the Freedom to Farm Act to show how the deregulation of farming, which allows every farm to fully operate, has caused prices to go down and small farmers to go broke. The only ones who benefit are big business, because they have the ability to mass produce where the small farmers cannot. When small farms try, they only further hurt the market of their crops, lowering prices, because there are too many. He rather bluntly blames failure of agricultural Kansan towns on this one solitary act, ignoring other possible factors, because his belief is that this is where the true harm lies.

He views Kansans as socially conservative, as many are, but his childhood beliefs clearly play into his social view of the citizens of Kansas. Frank was once a Kansan conservative. The fact that he came to the conclusion that he was being duped about class dinstinctions and opportunities, is reflected in the fact that he believes everyone else is too being duped into not seeing dinstinct class differences and the opportunities they create and stifle. He understands why Kansan's believe what they do, and he does not wish to negate that. He merely attempts to expose how important economic issues are, how conservatives typically act on them, and what the consequences of that are.