[SJackson]

getting the vote of low- and moderate-income people - particularly, males - has been a phenomenal accomplishment of the current breed of Republicans. The Karl Roves and Jim Dobsons of the world have cleverly used religion, abortion and outright homophobia to get folks to ignore their self-interests and elect candidates who do vote for so-called "family values," of course, but also work overtime to make life comfortable for the rich and powerful at the expense of the powerless.

As direct an admission of the amorality, immorality if you prefer, of the left.

While I don't accept his economic premise, if the "working class", people who work which includes me but perhaps not the author since he likely voted Dem or Green, ignore their personal economic interests to vote based on their moral values, good for them. Dave Zweifel should be attacking the moral values, not the fact that some votes can't be bought for short term economic gain.

[My2Cents]

getting the vote of low- and moderate-income people - particularly, males - has been a phenomenal accomplishment of the current breed of Republicans.

Frank's upset that this particular demographic no longer votes in knee-jerk fashion for the socialist left.

[SixStringSlinger]

Gee, maybe 'cause even us rubes in the Mid-West are smarter than Thomas Frank? Ya think???

[operation clinton cleanup]

As Paul Krugman of the New York Times pointed out last week

OK, thats enough. I don't need to read an further.

[NapkinUser]

Thomas Frank: I'm smarter than the rest of the people in my state who all vote republican because they have I.Q.s of 70 and are a bunch of caveman homophobes.....

Winning those hearts and minds, eh? Maybe they like tax cuts and social conservatism. No, couldn't be.

[The_Reader_David]

Is the newspaper name an Englishing of Das Kapital? Still seem to believe in dialectial materialism, don't they?

[Hendrix]

The democrats work off the flawed premise that big government is best for everyone's economic "self interest", when that is actually the opposite of what is best for one's economic self interest. If you want a higher standard of living, then you are not going to get it from the government. You will get it from a pro-growth economy, which is what the republicans stand for. People are not voting against their self interest when they vote republican. They are voting for their self interest. If you want to vote against your self interest, vote for the democrats and let them tax you to death for the "common good" (which is the opposite of self interest).

As far as the rhetoric about the "haves and have nots", that is just more Marxist class warfare propaganda.

[dr_who_2]

Last week, this administration's NLRB added to labor's woes with a ruling that expands by millions the number of workers ineligible for union representation. In a case brought by the management of some Massachusetts hospitals, the NLRB greatly expanded the definition of who is a supervisor and, hence, exempt from any union.

Krugman cop-out for the fact that union power diminishes as 1) they tend to gradually bankrupt what industries they do control and 2) your average private U.S. worker chooses to deal with his employer directly, vote the way he chooses, and give money to the politicians and parties he chooses instead of giving money and taking orders from union bosses.

[Hendrix]

As far as I am concerned, the union laws in this country are really screwed up. A company should be able to fire someone for trying to unionize its workforce. In fact, a company should be able to fire its entire union workforce if it wants to and hire non-union workers. Unions have way too many laws to protect them. Let the free market work as it should and dump the union laws.

[100-Fold_Return]

Surely the loonie-left's all-out-assault on Christian writers and their large following got a nitwit or two back in the demoncrat fold...

[dr_who_2]

Rise up Kansas proletariat workers! Stop voting for Republicans, you swines!

[EGPWS]

Big corporations like Wal-Mart don't have to fear firing workers who attempt to unionize because the Bush appointees to the labor board, if they act at all, will only respond with a slap on the wrist.

And they shouldn't have to.

After all free enterprise works and supports government to boot and if our economy were based on anything different, we would be living in a third world and the complaints would be 10 fold.

[WildBill2275]

It doesn't say it in so many words, but it sounds like school principals and vice/assistant principals can't be union members anymore.

Thats a good thing!

[crazyhorse691]

Thomas Frank asked how it is that working people in a red state like Kansas can consistently vote against their own economic interests.

---

If life were all about economic self-interests then NOBODY would volunteer for anything, ever.

[marsh_of_mists]

Of all the elitist left-wing claptrap out there, this bit about how the poor and oppressed could be so stupid as to vote for "the current breed of Republicans" is one of the clappiest and trappiest.

[Brad from Tennessee]

About 12 percent of the U.S. workforce is unionized. If the whole U.S. workforce were unionized there would either be much fewer jobs or no jobs because small businesses, which create most of the jobs, would cease to exist and the economy would collapse.

[alloysteel]

Ol' Dave is back to carrying the water for the old warriors of the left, trotting out all the shibboleths and slogans, even if he doesn't fully understand the meaning and origin of most of them.

Do not cry for the people of Wisconsin, or for those of Madison in particular. There is an old streak of statist thought, going back to the days of Bob LaFollette, woven into their thinking, and nothing less than a new generation will do much to change those attitudes. There has been ample opportunity, over and over, to "throw the rascals out", yet they keep on getting back in office. Wisconsin has always had a large contingent of "progressive" thinkers, but most often, they end up being in the minority most places outside of the "industrial belt" cutting up across the state from roughly Beloit, to Madison, then up towards Green Bay. Three quarters of the population live in that one quarter of the state, and everything that affects the whole state is pretty much decided in Milwaukee and Madison.

[WorkingClassFilth]

As the official spokesman for Working Class Filth everywhere, I can emphatically say that Krugman's head is firmly up his butt. None of us were "snookered." We left union politics and the RAT party because they are anti-American, communist perverts that want our wealth and liberties and, ultimately, to destroy our families and nation.

Next question...

[Clintonfatigued]

Republicans haven't won these votes through their own brilliance. The truth is that the blue-collar voters who have embraced Republicans have been chased out of the Democratic Party by its own arrogant, effete, out-of-touch leadership.

They had nowhere else to go but the Republican Party, who of course capitalized on it.

[A. Pole]

Thomas Frank asked how it is that working people in a red state like Kansas can consistently vote against their own economic interests.

Majority of Americans are conservative on moral issues and liberal on economic issues. That is why old style New Deal Democrats were so strong and that is why Reagan got votes of "Reagan Democrats" only after the left became decadent

When people are forced to chose they tend to put their values before money. Gay "marriage" advocates helped GWB to win in 2004 and they keep GOP in power.

[A. Pole]

Dave Zweifel should be attacking the moral values, not the fact that some votes can't be bought for short term economic gain.

Or for long term neither.