Lie Down for America: How the Republican Party Sows Ruin on the Great Plains

This article tries to grapple with the voting phenomenon, as Mr. Frank sees it, of those in America's heartland voting for the Republican Party when it is not in their best interests to do so. He gives a variety of examples all dealing with the lack of correlation between the working class majority that is in the Midwest and the legislative and governmental effects of the Republican Party. He states that through the cultural backlash movement, the Republican Party has managed to garner strong support from the working class while not actually helping the working class.

He maintains that by proclaiming that the Republican Party is the party of American culture, of American spirit, and of true American people, they have not only gained power in both houses of Congress and the White House, but they have also reversed the many social and economic programs of the 19th and 20th centuries designed to protect those that choose to protect the elite. He states that "It is a working-class movement that has done incalculable, historic harm to working-class people." He contends that while those in the "blue" states, those in the heartland that vote for Republicans are voting or the "values" that they believe are incorporated in the Republican Party, they are in fact voting to help out those that are already well-off. The GOP has managed to vilify the liberals and the Democratic party by this culture backlash movement and in so doing, not only gained the support of the Midwest and the South, but also gained their support to the detriment of the majority of the constituents in that area.

This paper, as Prof. Godoy pointed out, was not designed to support the contention of Mr. Frank. Rather, it was designed to show us what Gramscian philosophy is all about. Gramsci used the philosophy and platform of capitalists to highlight the inefficacies of that philosophy. So, in this case, Frank uses what the Republican Party claims to do and claims to help in contrast to what it actually accomplishes. Therefore, by stating and proving that the Republicans have indeed only help economically polarize American society, Frank uses what the people in the Heartland want in contrast to what they are getting. In other words, Frank uses the policies of Republicans and the effects of those policies, to dismantle the support given to them by the very people who are hurt by those policies. The Republican Party has often

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