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Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right Hardcover – Illustrated, Sept. 6 2016

by Arlie Russell Hochschild (Author)

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The National Book Award Finalist and New York Times bestseller that became a guide and balm for a country struggling to understand the election of Donald Trump

"A generous but disconcerting look at the Tea Party. . . . This is a smart, respectful and compelling book."
Jason DeParle, The New York Times Book Review

When Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, a bewildered nation turned to Strangers in Their Own Land to understand what Trump voters were thinking when they cast their ballots. Arlie Hochschild, one of the most influential sociologists of her generation, had spent the preceding five years immersed in the community around Lake Charles, Louisiana, a Tea Party stronghold. As Jedediah Purdy put it in the New Republic, "Hochschild is fascinated by how people make sense of their lives. . . . [Her] attentive, detailed portraits . . . reveal a gulf between Hochchild's 'strangers in their own land' and a new elite." Already a favorite common read book in communities and on campuses across the country and called "humble and important" by David Brooks and "masterly" by Atul Gawande, Hochschild's book has been lauded by Noam Chomsky, New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu, and countless others.

The paperback edition features a new afterword by the author reflecting on the election of Donald Trump and the other events that have unfolded both in Louisiana and around the country since the hardcover edition was published, and also includes a readers' group guide at the back of the book.

Print length

351 pages
Language

English
Publisher

New Pr
Publication date

Sept. 6 2016
Dimensions

15.75 x 3.81 x 23.62 cm
ISBN-10

1620972255
ISBN-13

978-1620972250
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Strangers in Their Own Land

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Review

Praise for Strangers in Their Own Land:
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST FOR NONFICTION
NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A NEWSDAY TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR
A KIRKUS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

One of "6 Books to Understand Trump's Win" according to the New York Times the day after the election

"[A] smart, respectful and compelling book."
―Jason DeParle, The New York Times Book Review

"[Hochschild's] analysis is overdue at a time when questions of policy and legislation and even fact have all but vanished from the public discourse."
―Nathaniel Rich, The New York Review of Books

"Hochschild moves beyond the truism that less affluent voters who support small government and tax cuts are voting against their own economic interest."
―O Magazine

"By far the best book by an outsider to the Tea Party I have ever encountered . . . a wonderful contribution to the national discourse.
―Forbes

"An entry pass to an alternative worldview, and with it a route map towards empathy."
―The Economist

"Remarkable. . . . Hochschild gives a rich and vivid picture of the emotional and social life . . . in the American South."
―Sean McCann, The Los Angeles Review of Books

"Hochschild comes to know people―and her own nation―better than they know themselves"
―Heather Mallick, The Toronto Star

"Up close there is a depth to the concerns of Hochschild's subjects . . . They are concerned about pollution, and about the social decay that we see most vividly in the opioid epidemic. They are aware . . . of facts on the ground."
―Benjamin Wallace-Wells, The New Yorker

"Strangers in Their Own Land is extraordinary for its consistent empathy and the attention it pays to the emotional terrain of politics. It is billed as a book for this moment, but it will endure."
―Gabriel Thompson, Newsday

[Hochschild's] connection and kindness to the people she meets is what makes this book so powerful.
―Marion Winik, Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Hochschild is fascinated by how people make sense of their lives . . . [She] conveys that she genuinely likes the people she meets, communicating their dignity and values . . . . These attentive, detailed portraits . . . reveal a gulf between Hochschild's Strangers in Their Own Land and a new elite."
―Jedediah Purdy, The New Republic

"The importance of emotion in politics, not just facts and figures, [Hochschild] writes convincingly, is critical to understand...a point politicians of all stripes would be smart to remember."
―Felice Belman, The Boston Globe

"Hochschild has gone about her investigation diligently and with an appealing humility."
―Karen Olsson, Bookforum

"An important contribution to the understanding of our times... Strangers in Their Own Land describes in vivid detail a world that is often ignored or caricatured by the media and by many liberals."
―The Nation

"[Hochschild's] deeply humble approach is refreshing and strengthens her research . . . . She skillfully invites liberal readers into the lives of Americans whose views they may have never seriously considered. After evaluating her conclusions and meeting her informants in these pages, it's hard to disagree that empathy is the best solution to stymied political and social discourse."
―Publishers Weekly

"A well-told chronicle of an ambitious sociological project of significant current importance."
―Kirkus Reviews

"If the great political question of our time can be summarized in the two words, 'Donald Trump,' the answer is to be found in Arlie Russell Hochschild's brilliant new book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. Hochschild, an eminent sociologist with a novelist's storytelling skill, has crafted an absorbing tale full of richly drawn, complicated characters who come bearing their own fascinating histories. Together, in Hochschild's authoritative hands, they offer a compelling and lucid portrait of what had seemed a bewildering political moment. A powerful, imaginative, necessary book, arriving not a moment too soon."
―Mark Danner, author of Spiral: Trapped in the Forever War

"Arlie Hochschild journeys into a far different world than her liberal academic enclave of Berkeley, into the heartland of the nation's political right, in order to understand how the conservative white working class sees America. With compassion and empathy, she discovers the narrative that gives meaning and expression to their lives–and which explains their political convictions, along with much else. Anyone who wants to understand modern America should read this captivating book."
―Robert B. Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley

"The celebrated sociologist Arlie Hochschild left Berkeley and went far outside her comfort zone to live among and report on Tea Party members in Louisiana over five years. With the clear-headed empathy she is famous for, she explored the central paradox of these political activists in the heart of 'cancer alley': they understand that the chemical and oil companies have destroyed their environment and sometimes their lives, but they remain ardent defenders of free market capitalism. Hochschild spent many hours―at church services, picnics and kitchen tables―probing the ways they struggle to reconcile their conflicting interests and loyalties. There could not be a more important topic in current American politics, nor a better person to dissect it. Every page―every story and individual―is fascinating, and the emerging analysis is revelatory."
―Barbara Ehrenreich

"In her attempt to climb over the 'empathy wall' and truly understand the emotional lives of her political adversaries, Arlie Hochschild gives us a vital roadmap to bridging the deep divides in our political landscape and renewing the promise of American democracy. A must-read for any political American who isn't ready to give up just yet."
―Joan Blades, co-founder of LivingRoomConversations.org, MomsRising.org, and MoveOn.org

"Arlie Russell Hochschild's work has never been more timely or more necessary, from the resurgence of interest in emotional labor to this deep, empathetic dive into the heart of the Right. Strangers in Their Own Land does what few dare to do―it takes seriously the role of feelings in politics."
―Sarah Jaffe, author of Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt

About the Author

Arlie Russell Hochschild is one of the most influential sociologists of her generation. She is the author of ninebooks, including The Second Shift, The Time Bind, The Managed Heart, and The Outsourced Self. Three of herbooks have been named as New York Times Notable Books of the Year and her work appears in sixteenlanguages. The winner of the Ulysses Medal as well as Guggenheim and Mellon grants, she lives in Berkeley,California.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ New Pr; Illustrated edition (Sept. 6 2016)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 351 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1620972255
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1620972250
Item weight ‏ : ‎ 668 g
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.75 x 3.81 x 23.62 cm

Best Sellers Rank: #344,523 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,419 in Political Doctrines (Books)
- #2,327 in Political Ideologies
- #5,934 in United States History (Books)

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4.5 3,086 ratings

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Arlie Russell Hochschild

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Arlie Russell Hochschild’s Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, now available in paperback from The New Press, addresses the increasingly bitter political divide in America. A finalist for the National Book Award, and New York Times Best Seller, the book is based on five years of immersion reporting among Tea Party loyalists -- now mostly supporters of Donald Trump. Hochschild tries to bridge an “empathy wall” between the two political sides, to explore the “deep story” underlying the right that remains unrecognized by the left. Mark Danner calls the book “a powerful, imaginative, necessary book, arriving not a moment too soon." Robert Reich writes” Anyone who wants to understand modern America should read this captivating book." In its review, Publisher’s Weekly notes: “After evaluating her conclusions and meeting her informants in these pages, it’s hard to disagree that empathy is the best solution to stymied political and social discourse.”

Her 2012 The Outsourced Self: Intimate Life in Market Times, explores the many ways in which the market enters our modern lives and was named one of the best books of the year by Publishers Weekly. Her other books include: So How’s the Family?, The Managed Heart, The Second Shift, The Time Bind, The Commercialization of Intimate Life, The Unexpected Community and the co-edited Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy. In reviewing The Second Shift (reissued in 2012 with a new afterword) Robert Kuttner noted Hochschild’s “subtlety of insights” and “graceful seamless narrative” and called it the “best discussion I have read of what must be the quintessential domestic bind of our time.” Newsweek’s Laura Shapiro described The Time Bind as “groundbreaking.” In awarding Hochschild the Jesse Bernard Award, the American Sociological Association citation observed her “creative genius for framing questions and lines of insight, often condensed into memorable, paradigm-shifting words and phrases.” A retired U.C. Berkeley professor of sociology, she lives with her husband, the writer Adam Hochschild in Berkeley, California.

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Granite in a stream

Limited scope, but good insight into people who likely voted for Trump

Reviewed in Canada on April 26, 2017

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This book is very timely in the aftermath of the 2016 election. Hochschild, a liberal from Berkley, spends time with conservatives and Tea Party members in Louisiana in an attempt to understand how people living in one of the most economically depressed and polluted states can still justify voting for the conservative candidates that they support. The answer isn't always clear, and you get the sense that Hochschild struggles, with many of the people she interviews, to really understand fully where they're coming from, or why they prioritize certain things over others. The book does illuminate for liberal readers some of the motivations of southern conservatives tied to their political choices that democrats often have trouble understanding - many of the interviewees are grounded in church, family, family histories of hard work and struggle and the value of individual freedom. Interestingly, many of her subjects who support candidates who either deny climate change or don't want to do much about it are actually concerned about the environment - it's just not their top priority when selecting candidates to vote for.

One of the most poignant analogies Hochschild draws on repeatedly is that of the "line"; that the southerners she interviews, white, middle aged, often men, find that they are waiting patiently in line but other people (outsiders, immigrants, women, etc.) are pushing ahead or being given priority. Even though the reader may not agree with the sentiment, Hochschild makes it easy to understand where these people are coming from and how painful it is for them to feel this way. In this way, Hochschild helps the reader to feel empathy for people who democrats may not otherwise feel any empathy for.

Obviously the book has limited scope. Hochschild has interviewed people from a specific demographic in a single state. We can't necessarily extrapolate the findings in this book to all Americans who voted for Donald Trump. But many of the people she interviewed probably did vote for him, and this book democrats to realize that they are more complex and yes, more human, and just like us, than we might like to believe when we find our own opinions so at odds with those espoused by the president they have chosen.

4 people found this helpful

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janet

Read This Book!

Reviewed in Canada on December 11, 2021

Verified Purchase

Arlie Hochschild wanted to understand the popularity of the American Tea Party is the most depressed area in the American South so she moved to the poorest county in Louisiana and spent 3 years honestly befriending and interviewing the people that lived there. When she had an inkling of what was driving their decisions she ran her theory behind her new friends, and they said she had got it right. You will have to read the book to find out, but you won't be sorry - this book is full of valuable insights into current America, what is dividing us, and offers some healing solutions.

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Al_the_Pal

Enlightening though I still can't quite comprehend the Tea Party mind.

Reviewed in Canada on March 20, 2018

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I couldn't put this book down. I was dumbfounded as I read each page. Hochschild tries to to present these people in an empathetic light as she seeks to explain their point of view. I'm an elitist liberal and I was seeking to understand why poor Republicans support Billionaire tax cuts and elimination of environmental checks on Corporations who dump their sludge in their backyard. The answers I found left me fearing for the future of the United States in that these Tea Party types seem to really misunderstand so much of their anger comes from misunderstanding and yet they are really politically driven. One thing Hochschild does is compare outcomes between two oil rich areas of the world Norway and Louisiana. To my Liberal sensibilities Norway's spreading of the wealth between all citizens seems far superior to a world where everyone except the Rich and Corporations are left to fend for themselves. Its apparent the Republican party counts on a curtain amount of ignorance among their voters when these people seem to hate the Federal Government though plainly don't really understand it in any realistic way. Meanwhile the rich get richer. Such is the way of the world. Makes me very thank full I got mine and a good life in a clean Liberal part of the world.

3 people found this helpful

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Dr. Heather MacIvor

A powerful antidote to a divisive presidential campaign

Reviewed in Canada on October 17, 2016

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Easily the most important and insightful book about politics I've read in a long time. If you're wondering how anyone could possibly vote for Donald Trump, read this book. Arlie Russell Hochschild breaches the "empathy wall" between Tea Party supporters and the "liberals" whose "feeling rules" have alienated some Americans who desperately need help themselves. Her insights into the "deep story" of Tea Party supporters in Louisiana could be a first step toward healing American society after November 8. Beautifully written, meticulously researched, and gripping. This may be the only book ever written by a sociologist whose ending can bring tears to the eyes with its sheer poetry and generosity of spirit. This book probably won't change anyone's vote, and it isn't intended to do so. But it reminded me how powerful a force imaginative sympathy can be. An exceptional achievement.

11 people found this helpful

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Pamela Hines

Fascinating research on how republicans make decisions even when not in their best interest.

Reviewed in Canada on June 13, 2019

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I learned a great deal about how corporations take advantage of geographic areas having a poor economy. They target areas with low unemployment so that they will not get complaints about pollution and health hazards because people want to keep their jobs.

One person found this helpful

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Tom Kane

Life Away from the urban

Reviewed in Canada on August 30, 2019

Verified Purchase

The author brings two approaches together --- her academic credentials and studies together with her non-judgmental in-their-lives "field studies." The author living in the regions (south-eastern USA) gave her serious and human and easy communication-with the people (not "subjects") in the communities she "visiting." I say "visiting" because she obviously went beyond short "studies" in the communities in with she lived. She established longer-term acquaintances with the people who "visited."

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Carlos Laflauta

The Selling of Resentment

Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2017

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Many liberals find it baffling that so many of the people most likely to be seriously hurt by the policies of the Republican Party are among its most enthusiastic supporters. Respected sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild calls this the “Great Paradox” and sets out to solve the mystery. She travels to Louisiana bayou country, one of America’s reddest regions and a Tea Party stronghold, to get to know and understand the people. She listens to them with respect, attention, and compassion in an effort to provide insight and understanding to those on the other side of the “empathy wall.” An explanation of the “Great Paradox” does in fact emerge from these journeys - and it is not comforting.

Hochschild begins with the devastating effects of chemical dumping and other forms of pollution on the environment. Incredibly, Louisiana loses a patch of wetland the size of a football field every hour. Hochschild tells story after story of environmental catastrophe. For example, there was the Bayou Corne Sinkhole.

In the summer of 2012 people started noticing tiny clusters of bubbles on the water surface. This was accompanied by a strong smell of oil. Then the ground began to shake: incredibly, an earthquake had hit Louisiana. One man found a crack in the concrete beneath his living room carpet snaking its way across the room.

The bayou began breaking apart. A huge gaping hole opened at the bottom and swallowed trees and shrubs and grassland. An oily sheen covered the water surface. In place of the disappearing forest the bayou regurgitated a polluted oily sludge, which expanded to threaten the drinking water supply. The sinkhole grew to over thirty-seven acres.

The guilty party was a drilling company called Texas Brine. In total disregard of regulations it began drilling underneath the bayou for concentrated salt deposits used for fracking. The drilling caused underground structures to collapse, creating the sinkhole.

Then there is the picturesque story of the “Rubberized Horse,” as told by a retired schoolteacher about when he was a young boy growing up in the 1950’s:

“'I was riding my palomino horse, Ted,' he recalls. 'Normally Ted cleared ditches five feet across just fine. But this time the horse fell back into the water and sank down. He tried to climb up but couldn’t. We tried to pull his reins, but couldn’t get him up. Finally my uncle hauled him out with a tractor. But when Ted finally scrambled back out, he was coated all over with a strange film. I hosed him off but that only hardened the film on him. It was like a terrible glued-on wet suit. It was like rubber. The vet tried but couldn’t save him, and Ted died two days later.' The ditch was downstream from a Firestone polymers plant” (p. 163).

In many parts of bayou country other types of industrial carelessness have resulted in undrinkable water, inedible fish, and increasing cancer rates. People would try to minimize their chances of being poisoned by cutting out and throwing away the fatty parts of the fish, where toxins tended to concentrate. An entire culture of fishing suffered severe damage. Nevertheless, voters in this region have repeatedly elected politicians committed to deregulation and dismantling the EPA. To them no villain is worse than “big government,” even at the expense of their health.

The antipathy towards “big government” is especially ironic, since Louisiana is one of the states that receives more from the federal government than it sends in taxes. In fact, 44% of the Louisiana state budget comes from the federal government. Yet Louisianans tend to oppose big-government “meddling” and regulating everything. This is why industrial interests like to locate in red states, putting their environments at risk. They have a much easier time getting away with abusing the environment than they would in blue states where community opposition is likely to be fierce.

Nevertheless, big government is the enemy, and the reasons are revealing. Of course one big reason is taxes. Nobody likes taxes, even if your state gets back a disproportionate share of them. But there are more compelling, deeply emotional reasons for this anti-government attitude, which ultimately provide the solution to the “Great Paradox.” The federal government is perceived to be the ally of people whom this working-class white population deeply resents.

To many of these people federal taxes represent both insult and injury. It’s bad enough that people have to pay them; what’s even worse is that the money goes to welfare beneficiaries who “laze around days and party at night.” Hochschild found this to be a very common sentiment:

"As one man explains, 'A lot of us have done okay, but we don’t want to lose what we’ve got, see it given away.' When I ask him what he saw as being 'given away,' it was not public waters given to dumpers, or clean air given to smoke stacks. It was not health or years of life. It was not lost public sector jobs. What he felt was being given away was tax money to nonworking, nondeserving people - and not just tax money, but honor too" (p. 60).

As one continues hearing these sentiments, one cannot help noticing how race so often plays a role in them.

“'I don’t like the government paying unwed mothers to have a lot of kids, and I don’t go for affirmative action. I met this one black guy who complained he couldn’t get a job. Come to find out he’d been to private school. I went to a local public school like everyone else I know. No one should be getting a job to fill some mandated racial quota or getting state money not to work'” (p. 92).

Sometimes, as above, one might hear race explicitly mentioned. More often it was not. The acceptable phrase, which Hochschild heard over and over, was “line cutter.” The real problem with this country is the “line cutters,” people who jump their place in line for the American Dream, while those in the poor white working class have been patiently waiting their turn for years. The “big government” that oppresses them gives unfair advantages to the line cutters, in the form of welfare payments, affirmative action, and recognition of special status. People who have worked hard all their lives with little to show for it must witness the undeserving “line cutters” moving ahead of them, and we all know who those are: blacks, foreigners, and anyone who receives government handouts. This even includes Medicaid: there is a widespread but mistaken belief that people on Medicaid do not work, even though it is documented that most Medicaid recipients do work (and of course many are children, or are too old, sick, or disabled - especially the nursing home population). So if Republicans want to do away with Medicaid, don’t expect much outcry here: let everybody work for what they get instead of leeching off the public dole.

As Hochschild describes it, this resentment of the line jumpers has been simmering for years:

"The 1960s and 1970s set off a series of social movements, which, to some degree, shuffled the order of those “waiting in line” and laid down a simmering fire of resentment which was to flame up years later as the Tea Party. During this era a long parade of the underprivileged came forward to talk of their mistreatment - blacks who had fled a Jim Crow South, underpaid Latino field workers, Japanese internment camp victims, ill-treated Native Americans, immigrants from all over. Then came the women’s movement. Overburdened at home, restricted to clerical or teaching jobs in the workplace, unsafe from harassment, women renewed their claim to a place in line for the American Dream. Then gays and lesbians spoke out against their oppression. Environmentalists argued the cause of forest animals without forests. The endangered brown pelican, flapping its long, oily wings, had now taken its place in line" (p. 211).

It seems that every group favored by liberal Democrats has offended these people in some way - including the pelican. But there is more. This simmering resentment has acquired the power of an erupting volcano because of a seismic demographic shift:

"All these social movements left one group standing in line: the older, white male, especially if such a man worked in a field that didn’t particularly help the planet. He was - or was soon becoming - a minority too" (p. 212).

We could hardly have expected the country to experience such a transformation without political consequences. So after eight years of a black President it is hardly surprising to see instead a regime seemingly sympathetic to white supremacy. Some interviewees compared the present situation to the Civil War: that too was an example of an overbearing Northern government with far too much power dictating to people how they should live.

"Whatever their family’s view or their own, however much sympathy they may have personally felt for blacks at the time, the public narrative was that the North had to come to the South, as it had with soldiers in the 1860s and during Reconstruction in the 1870s, to tell Southern whites to change their way of life" (p. 213).

"Culturally speaking, the entire North had 'cut in' and seemed to move the South to the back of the line, even as - and this was forgotten - federal dollars had steadily moved from North to South" (p. 215).

Overthrowing the liberal black President was a long overdue swipe at the carpetbaggers.

This explains why arguments that Republican policies exploit the poor in favor of the rich, and that these policies increase income inequality, have no persuasive power. The people whom these policies victimize have it coming.

"Liberals were asking them to feel compassion for the downtrodden in the back of the line, the “slaves” of society. They didn’t want to; they felt downtrodden themselves and wanted only to look “up” to the elite. What was wrong with aspiring high? That was the bigger virtue, they thought. Liberals were asking them to direct their indignation at the ill-gotten gains of the overly rich, the “planters”; the right wanted to aim their indignation down at the poor slackers, some of whom were jumping the line" (p. 219).

To Hochschild’s credit, these observations came to light through her efforts to listen sympathetically and try to understand people with whom she did not agree. Her success in drawing them out makes this book an important contribution to understanding the anomalies of our current political situation.

Conclusion: White Resentment and the Rise of Trump

In my own debates with Trump supporters (and I’ve gotten into more of those than I probably should have), I’ve been struck by something odd. Appeals to moral principles that I believed we shared had absolutely no effect. So my conversation partners had no response to the immorality of throwing millions of people off health insurance in order to make rich people even richer, or to tearing apart the families of undocumented immigrants who have committed no offenses and who fled to this country seeking asylum. And they didn’t care that they had no response. This baffled me, until reading this book helped me finally understand how to resolve the “Great Paradox.“

So many of us who tried to fathom the outcome of this bizarre election had no clue about an important dynamic that drove the result. In light of Hochschild’s research, the outcome now seems to have been almost inevitable.

"Looking back at my previous research, I see that the scene had been set for Trump’s rise, like kindling before a match is lit. Three elements had come together. Since 1980, virtually all those I talked with felt on shaky economic ground, a fact that made them brace at the very idea of 'redistribution.' They also felt culturally marginalized: their views about abortion, gay marriage, gender roles, race, guns, and the Confederate flag all were held up to ridicule in the national media as backward. And they felt part of a demographic decline; 'there are fewer and fewer white Christians like us'” (p. 221).

Donald Trump read this mindset better than any other candidate. And being the great salesman that he is, he won by selling a product, a very potent one, more powerful even than this country’s sense of morality, tradition, and decency. Trump won by selling resentment.

This is why behavior that under normal circumstances would have disqualified any other candidate only seemed to make Trump’s candidacy stronger. The apparent sympathy with white supremacists, the overt appeals to racism, the misogyny and the hatred of immigrants and Muslims, all resonated with a large segment of the voting public. If Trump insulted Obama with his birther lie, insulted blacks by insinuating that all black neighborhoods are hotbeds of crime, insulted women by bragging about how he could freely abuse them, or repeatedly expressed hatred of Latinos and Muslims, it did not delegitimize him. It strengthened his appeal.

"In other speeches Trump said, in reference to a protestor, 'I’d like to punch him in the face' (February 23, 2016). 'In the good old days they’d have ripped him out of that seat so fast' (February 27, 2016). 'Knock the crap out of him, would you? Seriously . . . I promise you I will pay for the legal fees. I promise. I promise'” (p. 224).

What other presidential candidate in modern history could have gotten away with speaking like this? And yet not only did enough voters find this acceptable, it energized and inspired them. Trump hated all the people they hate. It was about time.

Trump’s cruelty did not count against him; instead it was considered a virtue.

"Trump jovially imitated a disabled journalist by physically shaking his arm in imitation of palsy - all deeply derogatory actions in the eyes of Trump’s detractors but liberating to those who had felt constrained to pretend sympathy. Trump allowed them both to feel like a good moral American and to feel superior to those they considered 'other' or beneath them" (p. 228).

Trump gave people permission to feel sorry for themselves instead of for others who might need help but who are not like them. So not only could he get away with his outrageous statements and behavior, it was just what his voters wanted.

How naïve Michelle Obama’s words now seem: “When they go low, we go high.” How did that work out for the Democrats? The voters who gave us Donald Trump did not want to go high. Going high had no attraction for them. They wanted low and Trump gave it to them, while astonished Democrats watched and wondered why Trump’s excesses did not destroy him. In retrospect the reason is obvious.

Perhaps the deepest irony of this entire phenomenon is that the resentment that blew Trump into office was tragically misplaced. It is not the fault of black people or of Mexicans that manufacturing jobs no longer exist in abundance. The world is changing, and either one adapts or gets swept away. Scapegoating, taking it out on others is always self-destructive. And so it will be again. The Republicans’ anti-environment and financially predatory policies will hurt most the poor white voters who looked to them for salvation.

We are now left with the incalculable damage this election has done. Internationally, we have placated our enemies and alienated our friends. Our standing in the world has plummeted, and hatred of the “ugly American” has no doubt risen dramatically. We have gone on record as the only industrialized nation not to care about the state in which we leave this planet for future generations, but to care only about ourselves. “America First,” no matter the cost to anyone else. Domestically, we are pursuing policies that punish the most frail and vulnerable members of our society. Republicans, who have succeeded in demonizing a health care program that actually works if given a chance (and if Republicans do not sabotage it), are pushing their own “health” bill that is nothing of the kind. It is not about health care, but rather about seeing how many services for poorer Americans they can get away with cutting. Meanwhile the honor and prestige of the Presidency have been torn to shreds by a President who would rather spend his time composing adolescent tweets and watching himself on TV than actually studying policy and attending to governance. One great horror in all this is that we may actually come to accept it as the new normal.

Whenever policy is driven by resentment, the result is self-destructive. The people who elected Trump bear an ethical stain. Too many of them have allowed resentment to drive their policy. Everybody knew what Trump was. He made no attempt to hide his dark side; in fact, he flaunted it. And that is what people voted for. They voted for someone who was clearly inexperienced, emotionally immature, consistently dishonest, and with a mean streak deep as a chasm. And they voted for him not in spite of that but because of it.

Hochschild’s is perhaps the deepest of many efforts people have made to understand Trump voters, to sympathize with their plight, and to record their grievances. I have not seen even one comparable attempt made by the other side. The Republicans won both houses of Congress and the Presidency, and now even the Supreme Court, yet somehow only those who lost the election and who feel devastated by that loss have an obligation to understand and sympathize with the other side. That moral inequivalence speaks volumes. But as we have seen, against resentment morality may be powerless.

Finally, it is undeniable that racism played a significant role in Trump’s victory. People who harbor ill feelings towards other races or ethnic groups always have reasons for feeling the way they do, and there are always things we can try to “understand.” In this case the predominant rationalization is that members of the disliked groups, and their black President himself, are “line cutters” who are reaching beyond what they deserve, and we need to understand why poor working whites may feel that way. The term “line cutters” is code. It suggests a hierarchy of privilege, that people should know their place and stay in it, and clearly has racial overtones. Is this supposed to elicit our sympathy?

In the end racism is either justifiable or it is wrong. And as we keep witnessing the destructive consequences of this administration’s policies and values, it will not do to cast those who brought us here as victims of a changing world whom we should feel sorry for. People are responsible for the choices they make and for the ethical consequences of those choices, no matter how much they may believe they have suffered in comparison to others. It is not just everybody else who has a duty to “understand” those who bear strong feelings against other races and ethnicities; it is the duty of those who entertain such sentiments to examine them and correct them. Only then can we achieve a healthy society that works for all.

To a large extent this election was a repudiation of eight years of a nonwhite President by a group that feels threatened because its numbers and power are shrinking. It is hard to understand in any other way the intense and unprecedented hatred thrown at Obama since the very first day of his administration. Republicans shamelessly declared that their highest priority was not to work together to improve American lives, but to thwart him at every turn and make him a one-term President. Likewise the unceasing efforts to demonize and make unworkable a health care bill whose greatest sin is to bear the name of a black Democratic President. But I believe that the growing diversity in this country is actually a great strength. Hopefully the turmoil of this election is a temporary phase this country must work through as it learns to accept this diversity. Hochschild has laid bare the underlying dynamic of the resistance aganst it. We just need the willingness to confront the meaning of these findings.

661 people found this helpful

HT

A clear-headed analysis of why the conservative right thinks they way they do.

Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2017

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NOTE: One of these days I'll write a short review; this is not that day. This review is unlike most of my others where I try to go point-by-point through the author's arguments, highlighting them with quotes from the book. In this book I give a broad overview of her narrative I then respond with my own opinions. So, much, if not all, of the opinions here are mine and not necessarily the author's.

Since last Fall (2016) I've been reading in an attempt to understand the rise and the gripes of the far right wing (e.g. The Tea Party). This book directly addresses the issue through the "keyhole" topic of pollution in Louisiana. Arlie Hochschild went down to Louisiana for an extended stay getting to know the people in order to understand their political and social views.
The book opens with a harrowing tale of the damage done to a bayou from dumping toxic chemicals in the waterways. An old cypress tree forest is just gone. It's no longer safe to eat fish from the water or go swimming in it - or even drink it. But when warning signs went up conservatives in the area were angry at the intrusion of the government into what in their minds should be a private matter.

Fracking breached a salt cavern causing an enormous sinkhole that swallowed everything within hundreds of yards ruining property and homes. Once again, many conservatives objected to any government interference or actions against the company.

Instead, governor Bobby Jindal doubled down on this laissez-faire attitude by cutting the state's budgets for education and social services and gave that money to entice more chemical companies to the state in the hopes of creating more jobs. However, there aren't many low skill / high way jobs from these new sites. Foreign workers were brought in to build the plant, and with increasing automation there is not a much need for manual laborers. Moreover, many high skilled professionals such as engineers aren't interested in going to live in Louisiana because the infrastructure is all but gone and the natural areas are polluted beyond use. In her awesome Appendix C, the author shows that states with stronger environmental law enforcement and better infrastructure actually experience better employment growth.

Hochschild breaks the conservatives into three large, overlapping groups. Loyalists who don't want to turn against the industries that give them jobs; cowboys who just tough it out and figure they can handle anything thrown at them; and, the religious who look to God rather than government for answers. God provides the ability to abide the hard times.

Hochschild reports that some of that distrust of government comes from the south's experiences in the 1860s and 1960s. In the Civil War and Reconstruction the federal government descended on the south and took control of everything in an attempt to bring rights to the newly freed slaves. It is interesting to note that 151 years have passed since the end of the Civil War - much more time than elapsed between the founding of the country and the start of that war.

Then in the 1960s the federal government once again impinged on states' rights by passing the Civil Rights Act. This was later compounded by expanded rights for women, and eventually the LGBTQ community. The decline of church attendance in the country exacerbates the problem - making many conservatives uncomfortable in today's world. The Southern conservatives the author spoke with don't want to be told who to like. They want to like their own kind - straight white folk (though Hochschild doesn't say it as plainly as that). They only want to help their Christian friends. This, in my opinion, is flawed theology. The very heart of the New Testament calls for a new covenant. All three of the synoptic gospels quote Jesus as saying there are only two commandments. First, love God; and the "second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself". And who is your neighbor? The parable of the Good Samaritan makes it plain that our neighbors are everyone.

Hochschild developed a "deep story" metaphor of waiting in line for the American Dream. Poor, uneducated, white southerners have been standing in line waiting for their turn. Now government and society are giving other people cuts ahead of them in line. The blacks were given better places; then women; then foreigners and gay people.

That metaphor may give them reason to complain and feel like victims (though they chafe at that term) but it is fundamentally flawed. We can think of it as a line; but that line is horizontal, not vertical. I think of it like the Oklahoma land rush where people lined up horizontally at the territory border and took off at the canon shot to find their slice of the American dream. The poor, uneducated, conservative southern whites are feeling displaced not because others have received cuts in the vertical line, but because those people have been given equal place in the horizontal line. If everyone is equal, the whites lose the benefits of place. And really, those other groups aren't given an equal place in the horizontal starting line; rather, they are just moved up a bit but really are still behind whites in many ways.

Finally, the "facts" that are quoted by the people in the book are often wildly wrong. Appendix C goes through many of these so-called facts and disputes them with the real facts and figures.
Certainly the poor, white, conservatives are under attack in today's world. They are being pinched by the three forces Thomas Friedman writes about in "Thank You For Being Late": Globalization, Climate Change, and Technology. These forces are causing fundamental changes in our society and if you don't keep up, you'll be left behind. The salad days of the 60s and 70s are gone; the low-skill / high-wage jobs of the past (auto workers for example) are disappearing; replaced by technology (robots) and overseas workers. No amount of complaining, wall building, tariffs, treaty-leaving, and isolation will work. The plight of the poor, unskilled, uneducated - whatever their politics or color - is only going to get worse. I don't see that the Tea Party's efforts to go back in time is going to fix that. It's up to our politicians and leaders to change that narrative. Unfortunately, the Democrats have been too focused on identity politics to really touch the hearts of the poor, uneducated white people.

This tremendous book concisely and (I think) accurately reporting the root causes of the conservative movement today. If you want to understand how Donald Trump became president, this is an excellent place to start. But just because the reporting is accurate doesn't mean the right-wing viewpoint is accurate. Their facts are often wrong (see Appendix C) and I argue their theology is wrong. And because the basis is wrong, their solutions of isolation and retrenchment are fundamentally flawed. They have the right to be wrong; I just wish they weren't so powerful. But that power means they must be addressed.

21 people found this helpful

Schempp

Immer noch aktuell

Reviewed in Germany on May 1, 2023

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Wer den Spalt in der aktuellen amerikanischen Gesellschaft besser verstehen will, sollte dieses Buch nicht auslassen: Die Autorin (von der Westküste) reist in einen Teil ihres eigenen Landes (den tiefen Süden), der ihr selbst fremd ist. Allerdings lässt sie sich darauf ein. Und so gewinnt man den Eindruck, dass dieses Fremdheitsgefühl sehr nachhaltig ist. Es entsteht das (wissenschaftlich fundierte und grandios erzählte) Bild zweier völlig unterschiedlicher Teile der USA, die in unterschiedlichen Welten leben und so bald gar nicht zueinander finden können...

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chillnm

OK, but not great

Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2017

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My overall assessment of the book is it’s OK but not great. I’ll give the author credit for at least taking the time and making an effort to figure out who the “Bible thumping redneck conservatives” are rather than simply condescendingly disparaging them as ignorant hicks and demanding that government take “proper control” of the unruly rubes. In the end though, I’m not convinced she really “gets it” – and that may be due to a degree of inability to overcome certain preconceived notions. In the early chapters she talks about the “great paradox” which to her is the fact that the people she studies (conservatives in southern Louisiana) seem to be the very ones that could benefit the most from government largess and regulation, but yet they strongly oppose much or most of it. While many of them are not particularly wealthy, it seems to me most of them aren’t what I would consider particularly poor either; though some are clearly in what most would consider the lower middle class. And some of her subjects seem to actually be pretty well off – as in upper middle class. Yet as she notes nearly all reject welfare as a solution to anyone’s plight including their own regardless of their financial situation. Similarly, she notes that, due to the heavy industry in the area (mostly oil, gas and petrochemical synthesis), it does suffer from at least some degree of environmental degradation yet most of the people she encounters have a pretty jaundiced view of the EPA, and would prefer that they would mostly just “butt out” of their lives and their region. Indeed, there are some instances of pretty severe environmental degradation but due to what I perceive as the author’s over sensitivity to environmental issues she seems to see these severe instances as perhaps a lot more pervasive than they actually are. I can’t really judge for myself, since I have never been to the region in question, though through other readings and experiences living in similar places, I believe I have at least a general idea of what it is like. What the author seems to fail to grasp – at least completely is that – as in the case of economics these people are truly proud, God fairing and independent people who genuinely feel at a disadvantage – even insecure – to whatever extent they are unable to provide for themselves. Government welfare programs, to them may provide an emergency safety net, but they DO NOT feel comfortable or secure in relying on them for anything other than as a temporary assist to be gotten rid of ASAP. And as the author does acknowledge, they see living on welfare to be a very dishonorable way of life. With regard to the environment, the people seem to accept that some negative impact to the environment is a necessary tradeoff in exchange for the many high paying jobs provided by the area’s industries. This is not to say they are comfortable with wholesale devastation of the environment, but they recognize that some of the more pristine, pastoral rural environment of the past will necessarily have to give way to the huge refineries and factories. And where there is unacceptable damage to the environment, they see the EPA as really accomplishing little in the positive, but often negatively impacting the area’s industry to the extent that it negatively impacts economic opportunity and even their own personal freedom. Yet the author’s view of the EPA seems to be that it is that it is nearly god-like, can do no wrong, and that every nit-picking regulation they come up with needs to be honored as a sacred commandment to be reverently honored.
The author also makes a lot of her analogy of the people “standing in line” to “reach the American dream” which she bases on what I see as the false premise that the economy is more or less a “fixed pie” and everyone needs to wait his turn to get a piece. Conservatives see a properly functioning free economy as providing an ever expanding number of bigger and bigger pies where, with everyone’s participation, each person has a chance at receiving his piece, without an onerous “wait” in a long line.

Another premise she has that I strongly disagree with is the notion that today’s “right” has moved much further to the right than it was say back on President Kennedy’s day. As an illustration, she notes that it was none other than Barry Goldwater’s wife who largely founded Planned Parenthood, which in those early days was a pretty non-controversial organization supported by both conservatives and liberals. Yet today, of course, the organization is strongly opposed by nearly all Christian conservatives, yet the author seems to believe that it hasn’t really changed since Goldwater’s day; it’s just that the “right” has moved so much further to the right.

In chapter 4, the author seems to suffer from downright sloppy and totally inaccurate research, despite extolling her assistants for their impeccable research in the appendices. She asserts that in Louisiana, “an unlicensed vendor can sell handguns, rifles, shotguns or assault weapons …” and further that such “gun vendor” need not keep records of gun sales and that such vendors “perform no background checks” on their firearms customers and can sell to people that are prohibited from buying guns in other states. WOW! I don’t know what constitutes a “gun vendor” in the author’s mind, but it most certainly cannot be what any of the rest of us would consider to be a gun shop, pawn shop that sells guns, or another business that sells guns to the public as an ancillary part of a larger business – not even in conservative, rural southern Louisiana! The sale and transfer of firearms is among the most HEAVILY federally regulated activities in the US. It is in fact a federal FELONY for anyone operate any business where the sales of firearms constitutes any part of the income of that business without being a valid Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL) – even in Louisiana. Further it is a federal FELONY for such a business to sell any firearm of any description – new or used – to any person who has not, in the physical presence of the FFL, filled out a federal form 4473 – answering all questions truthfully under penalty of perjury for any untruthful answer, AND having the FFL clear the sale – real time by phone or internet connection – with the federal NICS (National Instant Check System) operated by the FBI in Washington and receiving an official “proceed” approval before the customer may take possession of the firearm being purchased. And contrary to popular misconception – largely spread by the irresponsible “news media” – this exact SAME procedure must be followed for any weapon sold over the internet. The seller CANNOT simply put the gun into a box and mail or express package deliver it to the customer. The transaction that physically transfers the gun MUST be done in person.

Overall, the book provides an interesting insight into “Bible belt conservatives” and the impressions of them by a basically intellectually honest – if sometimes ill informed – liberal scholar.

19 people found this helpful

DonL2507

Are Tea Party Adherents Natural Trump Voters, Or Do Attitudes Morph?

Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2018

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This book purports to provide insight into the political / social / economic attitudes of ultra-conservative Tea Party members, and by extension to 2016 Trump voters, by extended and follow-up interviews with about 40 Tea Party adherents in oil-rich (and petro-chemical plant-dense) southwestern Louisiana. The book's anecdotal focus makes for interesting reading, as compared to the usual dry social science surveys, but it's unclear to me how "generalizable" are the results of what amounts to extended personal and focus group interviews with just 40 folks from a specific locale and with a distinctive history. It should be noted in the author's defense, however, that after her interviews she correlated her respondents' attitudes with a number of national social science surveys (see Appendix A); and anyway, for better or worse, anecdotal accounts resonate more than statistics for the average person. In addition, the author, a liberal sociologist from UCBerkeley, is to be commended for her attempt to break the "empathy barrier" by trying to reveal Tea Party members' attitudes in an understanding manner.

It seemed to me that the author began her quest to reveal and understand Tea Party attitudes during Obama's first term, and then after her research was largely completed, her publisher (or she) tried to connect these attitudes to the Trump voter of 2016 and his unforeseen victory in that election. There is not a one-to-one overlap between Tea Party attitudes and Trump voter attitudes, although obviously there is significant correspondence. Perhaps right-wing attitudes are more fluid than expected, but the Tea Party got its impetus from Obama's perceived "socialism" as his administration reacted to the financial crisis in his first years in office. The Tea Party exhibited an anti-tax, libertarian bent that seemed very much a successor, albeit an extreme successor, to Reaganism. Reagan and the conservative Republicans of his time emphasized, among other things: (1) free trade, (2) open borders, (3) limited government, and (4) a strong foreign policy. In contrast, Trump attracted his voters by threatening trade wars, promising to seriously restrict immigration, promising a $1 trillion (!!) infrastructure program, and threatening to exit our post-WW II alliances. Did the author's Tea Party interviewees vote for Trump for those reasons? Did they vote for him because they wanted a "territorial" system, rather than a "worldwide" system, for taxation of multinational corporations (which they got late last year)? Or did they just vote for him because his name was not Hillary Clinton? Full Disclosure: I'm a center-left voter who finds much silliness, political correctness, identity politics, and fiscal irresponsibility on the (far) left as I find fiscal irresponsibility, anger and resentment, elements of nascent tribalism, and narrowed empathy on the right.

There are two fascinating aspects of Tea Party attitudes that are fleshed out by the author in her interviews: (1) Her respondents love the outdoors, and like to fish and hunt on Louisiana's bayous, but the extreme pollution from nearby petro-chemical plants prevents them from doing this safely (not to mention providing Louisiana with the highest cancer rate in the US), but they still criticize environmental regulations as an interference of free enterprise and a reflection of intrusive government. They rationalize this by either asserting that their loyalty must remain with the anti-regulation, anti-government party, or that living on God's earth requires some sacrifice, or that human striving requires an element of risk, (2) The respondents whose religious faith is very important to them often remarked that much of the ills of the nation stem from "unchurched" people. Many of these are evangelicals whose economic individualism can be hard to square with the Gospels, particularly the Book of Luke. Some also described their resentment from their perception that media sources were implicitly requiring their empathy for hard-luck cases around the world including poor black children and foreign refugees. The author notes that some of these Tea Party adherents have shown generosity to local folks (you could say: people like us), but it appears to me that their "net of empathy" is more restricted and less extensive than some other folks. And what can we make of a poll during the Obama years that indicated that 25% of the poll that identified themselves as Republicans thought President Obama was the "Antichrist"?!!

In the final analysis my view is that the author treats her interviewees a little more sympathetically than I do. She makes much of the fact that 90% of Americans have experienced zero growth in real income with the implication that economic anxiety has largely shaped their rigid attitudes, anti-government bias, and anger and resentment. She knows her interviewees far more than I do, but an authoritative study of Trump voters by UPenn political scientist Diana Mutz showed they were more oriented to "status" politics than "interest" politics, i.e., potential job loss or perceived lessening of economic opportunity were less important drivers of Trump voter behavior than cultural displacement by "others." Richard Hofstadter back in the 1950s-60s in his "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" showed the same thing, that is, that "status" politics was a stronger motivator than "interest" politics in animating McCarthyites, and later Goldwaterites. It seemed to me that the interviewees in this book were less concerned about people unfairly jumping ahead of them in line (toward the "American Dream") but were simply anxious in sharing this nation with others too "unlike" them. Finally, left-wing writers like the author often emphasize "interest" politics as motivating factors for working class and conservative voters as a means of broadening progressive coalitions, but it seems to me (and I hope I'm wrong) that offering these voters higher minimum wages, "fair trade" policies, higher taxes on the wealthy, and the like, will never resonate with them as much as cultural factors, e.g., gun rights, pro-life policies, man-woman marriage, that will keep many of them (most?) firmly conservative.

31 people found this helpful

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Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right Hardcover – Illustrated, Sept. 6 2016

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