The Personal And The Political

Megan vents:

Apparently, the only people allowed to comment on health care are uninsured diabetics from East New York . . . which makes any discussion moot, because that sure doesn't describe any of my interlocutors.

There's a weird presumption that the political must be personal. To be sure, class and income and background affect our thinking in subtle ways. But they don't make it impossible to develop, or maintain, a principled belief that runs against one's own immediate self-interest. What's the Matter with Kansas?  might more properly have been titled What's the Matter with Thomas Frank?