This new book by Thomas Frank amounts to a call to arms to Democrats to shift the debate from so-called "social" issues to economic issues. Through an analysis of politics in Kansas, he concludes that the right has successfully manipulated social issues to completely drown out economic issues, causing the non-wealthy to vote drastically against their interests. Democrats have let this happen by avoiding "the class language that once distinguished them sharply from Republicans."
This is a particularly powerful passage:
"the right has minted a generation "of sturdy blue-collar patriots reciting the Pledge while they strangle their own life chances; of small farmers proudly voting themselves off the land; of devoted family men carefully seeing to it that their children will never be able to afford college or proper health care; of working-class guys in Midwestern cities cheering as they deliver up a landslide for a candidate whose policies will end their way of life .... "
Great stuff -- and tragic beyond description.