Twenty years ago Thomas Frank released his landmark book, “What’s the Matter with Kansas?,” which dramatically changed the lens through which I viewed politics. It enabled me to more fully understand the strategy of starting a movement at the grassroots level and using sensitive cultural issues to gain effect.
God, guns and gays became hotbed issues of the day and eventually morphed into the present forms similarly dividing left and right. Education control, abortion, deregulation, fear of brown-skinned others, and repulsion of queer folk have continued the trend. QAnon and other self-serving groups have come out of the shadows to infect public discourse and declare there is no bottom to the level of snarky banter we once would have held in contempt.
One broad pronouncement of the book (of course) is that manipulation of cultural issues can be a springboard to inverting political alignments and encouraging voters to vote against their interests. On another level, an uneducated and gullible public is fed misinformation and can believe anything that contributes to their side of the great divide. Politics is a distasteful human enterprise that can lead to alienation, but involvement in politics and voting remains the only serious path.
Horst Holstein, Salt Lake City
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