Describing Color To A Blind Man: Explaining The Red States To The Blues
By Michael P. Tremoglie (11/16/04)
The absolute egocentricity and vacuity of the liberal intelligentsia was exemplified during a November 9 C-SPAN interview with Thomas Frank, author of the book "What’s the Matter with Kansas," which purports to explain why his native Kansas, once a liberal state, is now one of the most conservative in the nation.
He lamented that Republicans fool Red Staters with their “phony populism.” They portray Blue Staters as educated elitists, “with fancy diplomas on the wall,” who tell everybody how to live. According to Thomas Frank this is not so - Blue Staters are not people with letters after their name who want to tell the Red Staters how to live.
So who is Thomas Frank? He is a PhD from the University of Chicago, who wrote a book telling people in a Red State what’s wrong with them and how they should live.
Incredible.
This author is the paradigm of the quandary of the Blue Staters - their inability to comprehend, and therefore to demonize, people who do not think as they do. He is illustrative of Blue State insularity.
Simply put, Thomas Frank is a supercilious, sanctimonious twit, who promotes the creed of the Blue State, which is any working/middle class/poor person who votes for Republicans is a fool because:
· Republicans are conservatives and conservatism equals greed
· Republicans represent the rich and are just manipulating working people
· Democrats are the political party of the common person and voting Republican is against your own interests.
The reviews of this book only validate that this is the true attitude of the Blue Staters. For example, Barbara Enhrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed wrote a review stating, “ What's the Matter with Kansas? is the most insightful analysis of American right-wing pseudopopulism to come along in the last decade. As for Kansas: However far it's drifted into delusion, you've got to love a state that could produce someone as wickedly funny, compassionate, and non-stop brilliant as Tom Frank."
It is worth noting here that Barbara Enhrenreich is the honorary chairwoman of the Democratic Socialists of America. For her to lecture us about Republican pseudopopulism is ironic when one considers that she is apostle of the philosophy that invented pseudopopulism.
It is also worth noting that Thomas Frank was a guest speaker at the 1998 Socialist Scholars Conference along with Michael Moore and Katha Pollit. Michael Moore, who wrote after 9-11, that the terrorists should not have killed people in the blue states who did not vote for Bush. Katha Pollit who scolded her daughter for wanting to display an American flag after 9-11 because the flag stands for jingoism and war.
Another review, by Rick Perlstein, states, “Tom Frank has stripped the right-wing hustle to its core: It is bread and circuses -- only without bread. "
Red State people just want bread and circuses (beer and football perhaps?).
However, the most salient and informative review is by bien pensant, Molly Ivins. She reveals the true beliefs of the Blue Staters. Ivins wrote, “ hilariously funny on what makes us red-staters different from blue-staters (not), and he actually knows evangelical Christians, antiabortion activists… and Bubbas. I promise y'all, this is the only way to understand why so many Americans have decided to vote against their own economic and political interests.” ( italics mine)
Interesting how Molly Ivins claims that many Americans voted against their best interests. This is a refrain we hear routinely by the liberal elite. We, the hoi polloi are too stupid to know what is good for us. This is what makes us Red Staters.
What is interesting about this concept is that it echoes the sentiments of Cheka Commander Felix Dzershinsky, one of the most murdererous of Lenin’s band of genocidal Bolsheviks. Dzershinksy wrote, “ They (the Soviet peasants) are so ignorant that they have no idea what is really in their own interest.” It was this concept that was used as the justification for the terror campaign by the Bolsheviks against the Soviet peasants. (italics mine)
These are the people who feel they are uniquely qualified to tell the Red Staters what’s wrong with us. Is it any wonder that the Red Staters reject them and their ideas?
During the CSPAN interview, Frank proffered as evidence of Republican nefariousness and deception Bush’s tax reform plan. According to him, Republicans talk of values during the election campaign, However, after being elected do nothing to implement “values” policies. Instead, they do everything to implement economic policies that favor the rich. He mentioned that Bush’s first act was to repeal taxes.
I do not know whether he is ignorant or lying, whichever it is, he is not telling the truth. There are two things incorrect about this claim.
First, it is not true that President Bush enacted tax reform before values policies. One of the first things Bush did, one week after inauguration, was to enact a Faith Based Initiative.
Second, tax reform is not inconsistent with Red State values. Taxes are taken from some people and distributed to others by politicians who think they have more wisdom to determine how those funds should be spent than the people who earned them.
Once again, Thomas Frank, unwittingly, validated the belief of Red Staters. We are neither sufficiently intelligent nor compassionate to know what to do with our own wealth.
What he does not understand is that Red Staters believe taxes to be a necessary evil. Taxation is a privilege granted to the government by the people that is often abused by politicians for their own aggrandizement.
While his book is an anodyne to liberals, Thomas Frank’s Manichean philosophy is illustrative of those incapable of understanding the hopes and dreams of others. This philosophy was reiterated by an essay from novelist Jane Smiley who wrote for Slate.com about the “unteachable ignorance of the Red States.”
I once wrote that liberals are the self-righteous, led by the self-important, for the benefit of the self-interested. Thomas Frank and those who praise his book do nothing to disprove this. Indeed they Red State /Blue State dichotomy as defined by the Blue State chatterati just confirm it.
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