Thomas Frank is an writer for the New York Times. He wrote a book titled, “What’s wrong with Kansas?” where he wondered:

there is no bad economic turn a conservative cannot do unto his buddy in the working class, as long as cultural solidarity has been cemented over a beer.

It is a mystery to this liberal writer why people vote to benefit the wealthy at the expense of the blue collar worker. Of course, this is not how conservatives see the world.  Conservatives have sensed for a long time that liberals push are feel-good policies that have long term destructive power. As a conservative, having a “sense” for a problem is not enough. I need facts.  So, do liberal policies help the working class and the minority groups they are designed to help.

Yesterday, I heard on the radio that the graduation rate in Detroit is 24.9%. That is a pretty damning statistic.  Detroit and Michigan have been ruled by liberal policies for years.

Education is not the only failure. Unskilled, uneducated workers have a tough time finding work in a down economy. A recent Department of Labor reports looked at Black Employment in the Recovery and Walter Russell Mead shines the light on this fact:

The states where unemployment rates for African Americans are relatively low are states where not many African Americans live: Alaska (5.4 percent Black unemployment), Wyoming (6.2 percent), Idaho (8.0 percent), Hawaii (9.6 percent) and (at 10.3 percent) New Hampshire.  Except for Hawaii all are generally conservative, low-tax states.  The states with the highest unemployment rates for African Americans are staunchly blue: Wisconsin (25 percent), Michigan (23.9 percent), Minnesota (22 percent), Maine (21.4 percent) and Washington (21.4 percent)…read more

Elitists like Thomas Frank can’t understand conservatives because he thinks they are voting against their own self interest. They are not. They are just smarter than he is.

 

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