In 2004, liberal historian Thomas Frank published What’s the Matter with Kansas?, a bestselling book in which the author expresses his utter mystification at how the citizens of Kansas could hold conservative values and vote Republican, when socialist economics and the Democratic Party were so self-evidently superior. While the author looked down his nose at the inscrutable ignorant rubes of Kansas, insultingly treating them like laboratory rats unable to solve the simplest maze, the book and its popularity ended up being more of a commentary on the ideological blindness of the author and his left-leaning readers: try as they might,...