Democrats becoming Republicans is a common story and the subject of Thomas Frank’s “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” Frank, a Kansas native, is the odd duck who made the reverse transformation.

His argument is a variation on the theme of “false consciousness” wherein Marx explains why the working class is misguided in pursuing their best interests.

One hundred fifty years later, Frank is upset with Kansans for the same reason and believes we’re “deranged.”

Coming from the same mindset that took out ads suggesting that Florida Democrats put Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld up a against a wall and “pull the trigger” and looked at a document written by Massachusetts Puritans and came to the conclusion “Oh look Margaret, there it is, homosexual marriage,” this is quite an assertion.

Frank also thinks the people we vote for don’t address the things that make us angry. They haven’t outlawed abortion, supported concealed carry, put prayer back in school or reversed our descent into decadence and depravity. Well there you go. Why didn’t I think of that?

Frank’s conclusion is not only illogical, it’s simply wrong. Our legislators have repeatedly passed legislation attempting to thwart the country’s slide into barbarism and ultra-authoritarianism. And what happens when they do? A lib governor vetoes it, or some tyrannical lib judge turns the Constitution upside down.

Frank grew up on the wrong side of Mission Hills, and it seems to be the source of his angst with Kansas. Although he at least admits that Mission Hills is in pretty good shape, the other kids were snotty, treated him poorly and their dads were/are white-collar criminals.

It is the trauma of being rejected by this snobbish criminal element of Mission Hills that transformed a youthful, Reaganesque Frank into our current far-left hero. Sociologists — liberal sociologists, mind you — refer to this as relative deprivation. While being rejected from the frat set made young Thomas feel truly downtrodden, at least now he can probably say that none of the other snobs from Mission Hills will be published by Le Monde diplomatique.

That said, woven around this payback to those who rejected him is one of the best pictures of the conservative movement I’ve read by an author on the left. True, Frank dismisses our arguments as absurd and preposterous, but he’s a good writer, and his presentation of conservative arguments is far more compelling than his trivialized and error-ridden critiques of them. Ironically, Frank often makes similar arguments to those he derides.

Author makes ‘thought-provoking’ arguments Frank’s book states positions accurately, but critique flops

The big problem, according to Frank, is that the cultural concerns of folks like me (we’re supposedly devoid of economic concerns) give license to the shenanigans of folks like Westar’s David Wittig and Sprint’s Bill Esrey. If that’s the case, why is it the only politician we know of that Wittig personally squired around the Hamptons was Kathleen Sebelius? And why is it Esrey went full tilt for Clinton/Gore? Are they also ignorant of their class interests?

If conservatives are ignorant of economic issues, why is it that conservative Phill Kline was the legislative leader who lost power and privilege siding with legislative Democrats on working and middle-class economic issues?

It was Kline’s adversary, liberal huckster David Adkins, who became the Naderite Center For Public Integrity’s Kansas poster child for political corruption.

Frank thinks we should be more concerned about disasters like Enron, but the average working man slaves until July not for Enron’s many sins, but for a corrupt and bloated government.

It’s unfortunate that Frank spent so much time trying to link conservatives to those childhood tormentors none of us can stand when his obvious writing talents could have been devoted much more productively to the intersection of our shared cultural and economic interests. He clearly has the understanding to do so, and until he does, his books will fall short of their promise.

John Altevogt is a former chairman of the Wyandotte County Republican Party. He lives in Edwardsville.