What’s the Matter With Kansas? was a prescient portrait of a Democratic Party that was transforming into what Frank would later term a “party of the professional class”—urban, obsessed with its own smartness, worshipful of meritocracy and credentialing, and exquisitely vulnerable to accusations of elitism. The book was no cookie-cutter analysis. It wasn’t typical Republicans Suck/Democrats Suck marketing (drearily, there was one shelf for each in most bookstores back then). Frank came to painful conclusions, including many about his own party, and was unafraid to communicate them to readers.
...more
