Fascinating but depressing.

Thomas Frank, born and raised in Kansas, goes home and takes a long hard look at the self-destructive wholesale adoption of hard-right, fundamentalist-christian, conservative politics by the plain ol’ folks of the state.

He fills in Kansas’s historical background of Populism and anti-slavery (Republican in the Lincolnesque sense), and shows how today’s politics represent a complete about-face. Through interviews and anecdotes, he vividly illustrates how the “culture war” works, and how in their eagerness to sign up and fight in that war, farmers and working-class people destroy their own way of life.

Frank also takes the Democratic party to task for creating the vacuum conservative Republicans rushed to fill when they completely abandoned their traditional supporters in pursuit of wealthy business owners whose politics were somewhat liberal, thereby taking economic issues off the table and making themselves over into a “Republican-lite” party where moderate Republicans may feel more comfortable as their party continues to become more and more radicalized.

Well worth reading if you want a clear, well-written description how American politics has moved dramatically rightwards. Frank offers no solution, but for most people not high up in the political party hierarchies, there may be no solution save waiting until the parties burn themselves out or wreck the country to the point that revolution becomes a viable and desirable option.