What's the Matter with Kansas, er, Thomas Frank?

Thomas Frank, author of a splendid little story called What's the Matter with Kansas?, apparently woke up on the wrong side of the Kansas/Missouri border earlier this week and he blames political scientists for it.  Really, he blames just about everybody but himself.  His latest missive on Salon.com takes on an article that Ezra Klein (of the Washington Post) wrote for Vox a few weeks back during the American Political Science Association's annual meeting in Washington, D.C.  In the article, Klein argues that the inability of political elites in Washington to speak in anything other than partisan soundbites and ambiguous self-serving statements has driven many young Washington journalists into the open arms of the numerous political scientists, like myself, who study and write about political behavior.  As a political scientist I say it is about dang time they pay attention to what we know!  Every time I read a story about the 'Six Year Itch' or how Democrats are 'tax and spend' liberals or Republicans are 'racists' I just shake my head and cringe.  What does this have to do with Thomas Frank?  Everything.

You see, the thesis of Frank's book is that Republicans have duped white middle class voters into voting for them on the basis of social issues like opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage, and opposition to gun control.  Then, once they get into office, they abandon the social issues to implement their economic agenda, which is detrimental to white middle class voters.  The problem, as political scientists like Larry Bartels points out, is that there just isn't any evidence to support Frank's thesis.  Survey data indicates that outside the south white middle class voters still tend to vote for Democrats.  The data also indicates that most voters are more driven by economic issues than by social issues.  So what does Frank do?  He blames the data and those who analyze it while insisting that he, and he alone, understands why Democrats will likely lose seats in the November midterm elections.  Brace yourself for Frank's most unlikely answer to that question.

In a nutshell, Frank thinks the problem has nothing to do with structural factors that advantage the party out of power in midterm elections.  No, it has nothing to do with conservative voters angst over not controlling the Senate and/or the White House.  So, why, according to Frank, are Democrats going to get whipped in November?  Are you ready?  Here it comes...Democrats are going to lose in November because they just aren't liberal enough for white middle class voters!  If only they had more left wingers like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren the party would fare exceptionally well with white voters in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and all the other states that voted for Mitt Romney in 2012.  I am absolutely certain that a left winger in Mississippi would fare quite well, considering the recent Republican primary debacle in which many white conservatives voted for the guy that would have eliminated the federal government entirely!

In his despondency over why Democrats will not regain control of the U.S. House in November Frank writes,

"You might recall that Democrats controlled the House of Representatives from the early 1930s until 1994 with only two brief Republican interludes. What ended all that was not an ill-advised swerve to the left, but the opposite: A long succession of moves toward what is called the “center,” culminating in the administration of New Democrat Bill Clinton, who (among other things) signed the Republicans’ NAFTA treaty into law."

You got that?  Two things are to blame for why Democrats no longer control the House:  (1) they moved to close to the center between the 1930's and 1994 and; (2) Bill Clinton signed NAFTA into law.

Wow, it is remarkable how Frank is able to engage in revisionist history in such a few brief sentences.  His first point is just plain wrong.  Every analysis of party ideology shows that since the 1930's the Democratic Party has become more liberal, not more centrist or conservative.  To be sure, the party has not moved as sharply leftward as the Republicans have moved rightward.  It is also true that the Democratic Party has become much more friendly with business interests and is much more dependent upon them than it was a generation ago.  However, that is not the same as moving to the center as Frank asserts.  He conveniently glosses over the fact that for much of the period from the 1930's to 1994 the power brokers in the Democratic Party were conservative southerners.  They held most of the committee chairs and enabled a coalition with conservative Republicans that could stop any liberal legislation the coalition opposed.  Jonathan Bernstein does a good job taking Frank down on this point.

As for NAFTA, sure it may have cost Democrats a few seats in Congress but it is by no means the massive shift to the center that Frank insinuates.  It might even have been a mistake for Bill Clinton to sign it but hindsight is almost always 20-20.

In the end, what's the matter with Thomas Frank is simply that evidence doesn't matter to his view of the world of politics.  He tells a great story but one that is largely a work of fiction.  Perhaps that what the people of Kansas need to get them through troubled times.  I'll stick with the evidence, even if I wish it sometimes told a different story.

 

Is Rick Santorum Actually Insane?

I've tried to like Rick Santorum, I really have.  I actually agree with him on many of the moral issues he espouses, though that doesn't mean I believe they should be the focus of public policy, especially since I am a firm believer in the separation of church and state.  But now I am beginning to think he has actually gone crazy.  And not in a good way.  In a previous post I mentioned his incoherent and inaccurate rant about euthanasia in the Netherlands.  Now, it seems, Santorum sees demonic forces at work in encouraging kids to get a college education.  He says,

“I understand why Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college, because of their indoctrination mills, absolutely … The indoctrination that is going on at the university level is a harm to our country.”  He claimed that “62 percent of kids who go into college with a faith commitment leave without it,” but declined to cite a source for the figure. And he floated the idea of requiring that universities that receive public funds have “intellectual diversity” on campus.

Terrific.  Affirmative action for conservatives!   Oh wait, there already exists a great deal of 'intellectual diversity' on college campuses.  I think he means that science departments should hire faculty who bury their heads in the sand and deny global warming instead of following the evidence.  Religion departments should hire only those who believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God.  Political Science departments should hire nothing but fiscal and social conservatives.  And so on.  

Granted, many universities are populated largely by liberals, though I think, and research tends to support the idea, that much of that is a result of self-selection rather than academic bias.  Basically, conservatives choose more lucrative careers.  Most university faculty don't make a lot of money, particularly in the first six years.  Of course, there is wide variation from state to state and between disciplines.  A full professor in liberal arts might top out at $80k after a dozen years or so while business or science faculty could do significantly better.  But I digress.

As a faculty member at an R1 research institution for the past 3+ years I have yet to see any evidence of the so-called 'indoctrination' or war on student faith that Senator Santorum seems to think exists.  Apart from the fact that Santorum provides no documentation for his claim I would argue that if kids are losing their faith in college that isn't the college's fault, it is the parents and the church's fault.  I've run into many students of faith and I have seen their faith become stronger, not weaker, during their years in college.  I myself went to college as an agnostic and left as a Christian.  That's not to say that education won't challenge what one believes.  If it doesn't, it isn't worth pursuing.  What good is an education system that simply confirms what someone already believes is true?  That isn't education, it's a confirmation.  You can go to church for that.  And you should.

But if you want a brighter future then you should go to college, get a solid education, and enter society as a productive, taxpaying, well-educated citizen.  It has been proven time and time again that there is NO substitute for a good education to help people move out of the ranks of the impoverished and into the ranks of the productive.  It also shows that students who come in with conservative values leave with conservative values and vice-versa.  Apparently the 'indoctrination mills' are doing a terrible job indoctrinating kids.  Perhaps conservatives think universities function as 'indoctrination mills' because many conservatives believe the goal of pedagogy IS to indoctrinate kids into a conservative worldview, not simply provide them with the tools to be able to think for themselves.  If so, they should just tune into the Rush Limbaugh show and stay out of the classroom.