Five Minutes With: Thomas Frank

 Thomas Frank is  the author of  the book What’s the Matter With Kansas   which explains how the  wealthy in America conduct class warfare on the sly by  hoodwinking /bamboozling  the religious working class  .  Franks shares how the abandonment of the working class to support corporate interest  by primarily DLC Democratics created a void  which encourages the religious working class  to vote against their own and the nations well being. What’s the Matter With Kansas  is now on its way to becoming a feature film, due out in 2006.
 
CP: Could you give us a hint of one of the strategies that you’re going to focus on?

TF: It’s not written yet! I will say that I do focus on creating a liberal economic message because that is something that pop conservatives have trouble talking about. Even thinking about. The more experience I have with these guys, the more I am convinced of this. They love to talk about culture war. Culture war is very exciting, it mobilizes millions of people. But when you start talking about things like social security privatization it immediately shuts them down because it doesn’t fit their populist versus elitist narrative. It’s just the opposite. It totally turns the tables on them. So you drive this home as much as you can. I’m trying to find ways to do that. This is something that totally problematizes their world.

CP: One thing you wrote about frequently is the way in which the conservative cultural agenda has largely gone unfulfilled while the conservative economic agenda has made great progress. With so many judicial appointments on the horizon in the next few years, do you still feel that way?

TF: Since 1968, when pop conservatism really started its path to power things have changed dramatically in the economic sphere. But culturally, they’re always on the defensive and their promise is we won’t let it go as far as the other team would. Their overall record on cultural issues is one of total failure. And the right deliberately chooses issues that get you very angry and present them in a blunt and unnuanced way. They do win some things here and there but their victories are very limited. Even with abortion, they’ve only been able to chip away around the edges. Pro-choice is still the dominant position in this country. If they were ever to win, they would themselves facing a massive backlash. The pro-choice people aren’t really mobilized anymore, they’re not motivated, they’re not in the streets. And conservatives want it that way. They want to keep it that way. That’s important. They have to walk a very fine line between victory and failure. Failure here is important for conservatives. There’s something very attractive about fighting the good impossible fight. [more]