tic and the blue-staters being pretentious) as opposed to economics, which most Americans do not really understand or want to think about.
This formulation, according to Frank, is absolutely false. He explores this falseness by taking a rhetorical stroll through Kansas, noting that "as long as America loves authenticity, my home state of Kansas is going to be symbolically preeminent" (28). In Frank's words, Kansas is "deepest Reagan country, the heart of the heartland, the roots of the grass, the reddest of red states" (28). This idea of Kansas being a stand-in for all that is great in America, Frank notes, is a longstanding trope over the past fifty years. However, Frank points out that "a century ago Kansas was not the land of normality but the freak state...a violent and a radical and maybe even a cra
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