Frank on Conservatives

In an OpEd Piece in the NYTimes, Thomas Frank points out that the reason conservatives fight big, noisy, public battles on moral issues in ways they cannot win (Constitutional ammendments on flag burning, public school prayer, gay marriage) is that it attracts attention of poor and working class people who share those values, but whose economic self-interests are directly opposed to those of the conservatives. As Frank (author of "What's the Matter With Kansas?") says:

Losing is prima facie evidence that the basic conservative claim is true: that the country is run by liberals; that the world is unfair; that the majority is persecuted by a sinister elite. And that therefore you, my red-state friend, had better get out there and vote as if your civilization depended on it.

In this way, the conservatives win votes easily, without *any change* in the way we are governed. They rely on the rational to stop them, scooping up the votes of the many who can understand the simplicity of "gay marriage bad", but who have neither the time nor inclination of finding out that Kerry's medical plan would cover 26.7M of the 44M Americans who are uninsured, while Bush's plan covers only 2.1M and creates a new tax break for the wealthy (at least, according to Krugman).

This implies something horrific to contemplate, and difficult to employ: Democrats must stop seeing these constitutional amendment battles as an opportunity to stand up for values, and instead as a strategy for votes from people who -- on economic grounds -- should be voting Democrat.

It's either that, or figure out how to make tax law and medical insurance a viscerally important issue.