In his 2004 text titled What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Hearts of America, Thomas Frank (106) argues that if one takes Kansas as an exemplar of voting patterns in the United States, it is becoming increasingly clear that "working-class heroes are even more Republican than their bosses." In other words, the thesis addressed by Frank throughout his text centers on his contention that (67) that what has caused the Republican Party to enjoy victories at the national, state, and even local levels is that different groups such as "millionaires and trailer-park dwellers, these farmers and thrift-store managers and slaughterhouse workers and utility executives... are almost all Republicans." Class, which once separated members of the Democratic Party from the Republican Party, no longer seems to matter. Frank (67) takes the position that the Republican Party claim to moral values has undermined the appeal of the Democratic Party and its candidates despite that group's superior record on moral issues.
             With Kansas as his template, Frank (79) paints a broad picture of a radical shift in party allegiance that has led working class individuals who once felt that the Democrats represented their interests to shift to the Republican Party. Underpinning his argument is a sense that this so-called Great Backlash is ultimately the result of ignorance. Frank (5) says that "while earlier forms of conservatism emphasized fiscal sobriety, the backlash mobilizes voters with explosive social issues – summoning public outrage over everything from busing to un-Christian art – which it then marries to pro-business economic policies." He is tacitly suggesting that the annoyance of many ordinary working class Americans about funding for artistic projects that they consider to be vulgar and underlying institutional and social racism have combined to lead once loyal Democrats away ...