Thomas Frank, in his modern classic What’s the Matter with Kansas?, writes that backlash conservatism rests on the foundation that “ignoring one’s economic self-interest may seem like a suicidal move to you and me, but viewed differently it is an act of noble self-denial; a sacrifice for a holier cause.” In her thoughtful study Strangers in Their Own Land, Arlie Hochschild poses the paradoxical question: “Why, with so many problems [in poor white communities], was there so much disdain for federal money to alleviate them?”11
