http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-America/dp/0805073396

A perennial question for me is how middle-class America was persuaded to work against it’s best self-interest by the ultra-wealthy and ultra-powerful.  It’s driven me nuts for quite a while now as I’ve watched some of the folks around here cut their own throats, slit their wrists, screw their neighbors and kill foreigners all the while proclaiming their virtue, piety, and interest in freedom, justice, peace and democracy.  It’s seemed odd.  I’ve ascribed it in the past to an arrested development, the maintenance of a 12 y/os world view while the rest of the population moved on.  Maybe that’s not all of it.

I haven’t read this book, and maybe the world has, but even the reviews are interesting and informative.  I have ordered it, though, and maybe it has some answers.

Arf