What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America

In this 2004 book, journalist and historian Thomas Frank asks why many working-class voters in his home state of Kansas embraced conservative politics. He argues that culture-war issues such as abortion and the teaching of evolution pulled ordinary voters into a movement he labels the Great Backlash. Frank contends that the movement's economic policies favored business interests over those same voters. The book prompted wide debate, including a statistical challenge from political scientist Larry Bartels to its claims about working-class voting.

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Hillary Clinton: “After John Kerry lost to George W. Bush in 2004, the writer Thomas Frank popularized the theory that Republicans persuaded whites . . . to vote against their economic interests by appealing to them on cultural issues – in other words, 'gays, guns and God.' There's definitely merit in that explanation.”