I was watching an interview with the philosopher Slavoj Zizek a while back, and the interviewer asked him what he thought the most important work of political philosophy was in the last twenty years. I was certainly intrigued to hear Zizek's answer, but I was expecting him to name some work by one of the many 
heavyweight European philosophers of the past decades (Badiou, Agamben, Laclau, something like that). Instead I was actually quite surprised by his answer- he said in his opinion, it was Thomas Frank's What's the Matter With Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. What's the book about? Well let me quote the beginning of the recent Beams article by Joe Corbett, where he links to Frank's book in the middle of this passage- "A classic problem in critical social theory is why a large chunk of the working class in democratic societies seem to consistently vote against their own economic interests, and give their loyalty and support to those who do the bidding of the power-elite and wealthy".
Frank shows how the Republican party in America basically created the culture wars in that country to drum up support from a certain (large) segment of the population, and then how they systematically implemented (neoliberal) economic policies that undermined and continue to undermine that same voting base. They also concocted the caricature of the elitist, latte drinking, Volvo driving, wine sipping, Ivy league Liberal establishment as the scapegoat/bogeyman that was responsible for ruining the country (again, taking eyes away from their own economic policies/agenda). As Franks succinctly puts it, "[The conservative establishment] mobilize voters with explosive social issues...which are then married to pro-business economic policies. Cultural anger is marshaled to achieve economic ends" (p.5).
Here's how Zizek describes Frank's thesis in his own book First as Tradegy, Then as Farce:
Thomas Frank aptly described this paradox of contemporary populist conservatism is the US: the economic class opposition (poor farmers, blue-collar workers versus lawyers, bankers, large companies) is transposed or recoded into the opposition of honest hard-working Christian true Americans versus the decadent liberals who drink lattes and drive foreign cars, advocate abortion and homosexuality, mock patriotic sacrifice and "provincial" simple ways of life, and so forth. The enemy is thus perceived as the "liberal" elite who, through federal state interventions- from school-busing to legislating that Darwinian evolution and perverse sexual practices to be taught in class- want to undermine the authentic American way of life. The conservatives main economic demand is therefore to get rid of the strong state which taxes the population in order to finance its regulatory interventions; their minimal economic program is thus "less taxes, less regulations". From the standard perspective of the enlightened and rational pursuit of self-interest, the inconsistency of this ideological stance is obvious: the populist conservatives are literally voting themselves into economic ruin. Less taxation and deregulation means more freedom for the big companies that are driving the impoverished farmers out of business; less state intervention means less federal help to small farmers, etc.
Although the "ruling class" disagrees with the populists' moral agenda, it tolerates the "moral war" as a means of keeping the lower classes in check, that is, it enables the later to articulate their fury without disturbing the economic status quo. What this means is that the culture war is a class war in a displaced mode".
I've been wanting to add Thomas Frank's work into the mix here at Beams for a while now, and I'm glad Joe Corbett beat me to it in his important article. Here are a couple of videos with Frank where he discusses these issues. The first is an interview with Bill Moyers about What's the Matter With Kansas. A key section is between the 7-10 minute mark. You can find the second half of the Moyers interview here, and Frank also discussed the book with Charlie Rose in an interview you can watch here.
Next is a long talk that Frank gave at Powell's Books in Portland, in support of his follow up book The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule. It might be an hour but its well worth the time.
And Frank has a brand new book called Pity the Billionaire: The Hard Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right. You can watch Frank on this book and other political topics in this recent interview with Democracy Now.
