How the Democrats lost the heartland

You blame the Democratic Party, to a significant extent, for its own predicament in places like Kansas. You use the phrase "criminally stupid" to describe its strategy and tactics since the 1970s. Explain what you mean.

There are two different errors that were made, and both of them have amounted to jettisoning the working class, so that the working class is no longer the central focus of the party. In the McGovern era they described this as the "new politics." The error of that was apparent at the time, because McGovern went down in flames. The idea was, we'll build a new coalition around students, feminists, environmentalists and so on.

The Democrats are forever trying to come up with some kind of demographic coalition that will get them to 51 percent. They talk about that all the time. That was one of the first efforts to do that, and it was discredited really fast. But the Democratic Leadership Council is, I think, a far more poisonous purveyor of this idea, getting rid of the working class. Or not getting rid of them, but no longer appealing to them as the center of the coalition, the bulwark of the party. Instead, it's suburban professionals or whoever.

Bill Clinton is, in their minds, the great success story for this strategy. He signed off on NAFTA, on welfare reform, on so many other Republican issues. He basically accepted the Reagan agenda on economic issues, whether it was deregulating the banks, doing away with New Deal farm policy, doing away with welfare, deregulating telecom, free trade. In all those ways, he was essentially a Republican. But he fought it out very vigorously on the cultural issues. And according to the New Democrats, this is the way to do it.

They point to Clinton and say, "Look, we won the presidency! We won twice! Therefore this is a great strategy." And I would point out that while they won the presidency, they are no longer the majority party, either in Congress or the nation. That is a staggering reversal. Look, when you and I were growing up, the Democrats were always the majority. It was the party of the working class. Duh! It was the party of the majority. I thought the day would never come that they were no longer in that position. Now, I believe Republicans actually outnumber Democrats in registration. That is staggering.

It has happened because of this strategy. You take people who would be natural Democrats -- because they work in industry, they're blue-collar people -- and you suddenly remove the economic issues from the table. You say, well, the Democrats are the same as the Republicans on those issues now. And all that's left for them to consider are the cultural issues.

I talked to several people in Wichita -- I quote one of them in the book -- who come right out and say, "When the Democrats went with NAFTA, they no longer had anything to offer me, and I started voting Republican." That is a catastrophe.

A friend of mine pointed out that when the Democrats decided they would no longer contest these elections on economic issues -- of course none of these blanket statements are 100 percent true. There are still Democrats who do fight it out on economic issues, and they tend to do all right.

I guess John Edwards would be this year's example.

Yeah, or Howard Dean. They both talked old-school populism. I thought Edwards was great. At least the way he talked was great. Kerry is trying to talk that way now, but it's not as persuasive coming from him. Anyhow, my friend pointed out that when you drop the economic issues, and when the nation's politics are about culture, it pushes down voter participation. Look at the 1920s, when both parties agreed on the economic issues and the fights were about Prohibition and Americanism and these other silly issues that are nonetheless precursors to the things we fight about today.

There are only two natural positions in a two-party system. One party is going to be the party of money, and the other party is going to be the party of numbers. You can only be one or the other, and the Republicans have pretty much got the money sewn up. The Democrats decided, when they made this jump to fighting the culture wars only, that they were essentially giving up on being the party of the majority. They want to contest for the money as well.

They want to be the other party of money.

Yeah, that's right. They want to switch places with the Republicans. This is disastrous! It's a bad idea!

This leaves the Republicans as A), the only party with a grass-roots movement at its base, right? The Democrats haven't had that for decades.

They have little fragmented movements here and there. The labor movement is still out there. It's not as strong as it was, but it still exists.

Yeah, and the environmentalists, the black churches, the Deaniacs. None of those things can be described as the base of the Democratic Party. And B), it leaves the Republicans as the only party with a class-based appeal to working people.

Exactly! That's the critical point.

Maybe it's a perverted class-based appeal, but ...

That is the point of the book. There are several points I hope readers will come away with, but that's the critical one. Democrats have to face up to that. They're so afraid to talk about social class, and anytime they do the Wall Street Journal runs an editorial saying, "No class warfare! We can't have class warfare in American politics." And the Republicans do class warfare all the time. They talk about the liberal elite all the time. They're forever attacking the tastes and habits of the rich.

This is where the Kansas example is so remarkable. The Kansas conservative leaders denounce rich people. They do it all the time. That neighborhood where I'm from, in Mission Hills. They forever lambaste people from Mission Hills! But then, think of what their policies are: They're going to cut my taxes! Well, not me. My dad's. Mine are negligible. But the policies they enact are going to make the people they denounce wealthier than ever. It's an amazing thing, and it's something the Democrats cannot grasp. The Republicans do talk about social class, and they are winning that battle.

Doesn't this piss you off? The party that should be standing up for working people hasn't been doing it, for the better part of 20 years?

I mean, in fairness, some of them do. But of course it pisses me off! I mean, yeah! I was doing a radio interview in Kansas when a Republican state senator phoned in. The host more or less recited my argument to her and said, "You represent a working-class district. And Tom Frank says the free-market policies you support are hurting your own constituents." All she could say was, "Free-market policies -- those are really mainstream. Everybody supports those." I'm like, no they don't. Maybe it's mainstream now, but what about Franklin Roosevelt! Harry Truman! William Jennings Bryan! Our great heroes! Harry Truman was from Kansas City, for God's sake. It's not strange to have doubts about the free market.

You keep meeting these right-wing activists who are such striking and powerful characters. People with pretty extreme-right politics -- they're fighting to close abortion clinics, to ban the teaching of evolution or, you know, basically shut down the school system. And they're remarkable people. They renounce prosperity and personal gain in favor of their idea of righteousness. They choose principle over their own personal interest.

In a different context, it would be very noble.

It's inspiring, if a little bizarre. This used to be what people on the left did, right? Isn't there a lesson we should learn from these people?

I hope so, yes. You've taken the words out of my mouth. What can I say? Of course we should learn from it.

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