Welcome to the Homeland: A Journey to the Rural Heart of America’s Conservative Revolution
Brian Mann has Kansas and Missouri in his blood, even though he now lives in upstate New York. That legacy serves him well in a book about American politics quite likely to start interesting, and maybe productive, debates among its readers.
“I grew up on the Kansas prairie, in Wichita and Augusta and Longton,” Mann says. “I still love driving the chalky back roads of Elk County, smelling the wild garlic in the fields. There’s no sight on earth more dramatic than the Flint Hills at night when the farmers are burning away the season’s chaff.”
As an adult, Mann lived here in Columbia for a while. In between came small towns in Oklahoma and Alaska. His brother Allen, who plays a gigantic role in the book, settled in Washington, Mo.
Many of those small towns harbor voters dubbed “homelanders” by Mann. In general, they support the Republican Party, including the presidency of George W. Bush, even as they acknowledge that Bush has disappointed many political party faithful to the same degree that President Bill Clinton disappointed faithful Democrats.
The conundrum at the center of the book is how small-town residents living in relative isolation ended up dominating elective office — not only in the White House, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, but also in lots of state legislatures. After all, urban voters from New York City to Kansas City to San Francisco would seem to outnumber rural folks.
Mann explains that the nation’s founders set the stage for such seemingly counterintuitive results through the electoral college that determines who occupies the White House, as well as giving each state equal Senate representation. State legislative traditions that allow the drawing of House districts according to electoral political outcomes instead of equity contributed to rural dominance as well.
The passionate commitment of the homelanders is a significant part of the equation. They turn out to vote, labor for favored candidates and otherwise participate more deeply than urban voters tend to do. Why? Because the core issues of abortion, gun control, penalties for drug use, the proximity of pornography and overall views of moral decay energize them. That the Republicans often fail to deliver on their promises about such core issues seems insignificant compared with what is seen as the Democrats’ unacceptable views.
Inevitably, Mann’s book will draw comparisons to What’s the Matter With Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. The author of that book, Thomas Frank, made a big and deserved splash two years ago. Mann and Frank cover lots of the same ground, but with a different perspective. Generalizations are imperfect here. But I will offer one anyway: Frank believes rural voters who support the Republicans are often unable to discern their self-interest, and often are downright bamboozled. Mann believes those same rural voters have defined their self-interest clearly, and know precisely what they are doing when entering the voting booth.
The biggest difference between the two books, however, is Mann’s use of his beloved brother as foil and muse and seer. The contrast between the two men is endlessly fascinating, while also providing a compelling narrative structure.