In What’s The Matter With Kansas? , Thomas Frank found the ghost of Friedrich Engels haunting the Great Plains. The author of the 2004 bestseller argued that by voting Republican, and therefore against redistribution, poor Kansans had a case of false consciousness. Democrats were soothed by the idea put forward by Frank that, for the working class, re-electing President George W Bush was a form of masochism, and that their party simply had to make these people realise that voting for them was in their own interest.
在《堪薩斯怎麼了？》(What’s The Matter With Kansas? )一書中，托馬斯•弗蘭克(Thomas Frank)發現了弗里德里希•恩格斯(Friedrich Engels)的幽靈在美國大平原(Great Plains)上游蕩。弗蘭克在這本於2004年出版的暢銷書中辯稱，通過投票支持共和黨人，從而反對再分配，可憐的堪薩斯人犯了思想上的錯誤。民主黨人對弗蘭克的以下觀點感到欣慰：對工人階級來說，讓小布什(George W Bush)連任總統是某種形式的受虐狂，而民主黨只要讓這些人認識到，投票支持民主黨符合他們自身的利益。