Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right

“I came to realize that the Tea Party was not so much an official political group as a culture, a way of seeing and feeling about a place and its people.”

The author is interested in The Impact of Deep Stories on Political Ideology, and here she observes that the Tea Party, although it is perceived by many in her own circle as a political party, is experienced in rural America as an entire way of understanding the world. It is rooted in emotional response rather than analytical thought.

“Tea Party adherents seemed to arrive at their dislike of the federal government via three routes: through their religious faith (the government curtailed the church, they felt), through hatred of taxes (which they saw as too high and too progressive), and through its impact on their loss of honor.”

The author is interested in how Tea Party conservatives form their political beliefs, especially as she is of the opinion that they often vote against their economic best interests. Here, she observes the role that emotion plays in belief formation, and she begins to better understand the role that “deep stories” play in the development of belief systems. By breaking down the thought processes of these conservative voters for a primarily liberal readership, the author evokes pathos to bridge the political divide.

“We didn’t go to the store but once a month to get sugar, vanilla, and such. We had chickens, hogs, cows, and a garden. We lived off the bayou.”

Many of the people whom the author interviews often look backward at what they perceive to be a better United States. They remember a time when they were freer as communities to make their own decisions and when the lands that they depended on for sustenance were not polluted. This is, in part, the source of the “anger” the author perceives on the political right: She sees a large swath of the population that feels it no longer has access to a way of life that defined it for generations and feels threatened in particular by the overreach of big government into their communities.

“My brother-in-law JD was the first. He came down with a brain tumor and died at forty-seven. Then my sister next door Lily May had breast cancer that went into her bones. My mom died of lung and bladder cancer.”

The author uses environmental issues and climate change as a “keyhole” through which to analyze political belief formation and America’s political divide. Here, she listens to a family discuss the impact that industry has had on their community. This feeds into the author’s sense of a “Great Paradox” in which voters in this area continuously vote against their own interests. This example emphasizes the paradox—though this family has been heavily affected by the pollution, they still vote in favor of pollution over regulation.

“The state always seem to come down on the little guy. Take this bayou. If your motorboat leaks a little gas into the water, the warden will write you up. But if companies leak thousands of gallons of it and kill all the life here? The state lets them go.”

Because they feel so disconnected from “big” government, many of the people with whom the author comes into contact feel particularly victimized by government regulation. They see a double standard in a government that allows large corporations to pollute while blaming the “little guy,” and this causes them to distrust any government efforts to regulate society and industry.

“The logic was this: The more oil, the more jobs, the more jobs, the more prosperity, and the less need for government aid. And the less the people depended on government—federal, local, state—the better off they would be.”

Part of the author’s goal during her five years in Louisiana was to understand why a subset of the population with deep ties to nature and the environment would support politicians whose policies cause environmental damage. Here, she learns that in small, rural communities, industries like oil are often viewed as the pathway to increased economic opportunity and less reliance on government aid. Not having to “take handouts” helps communities to feel not only resilient but honorable. This is, at least in part, why they tolerate polluting industries.

“Seen as an environmental curse to many, the fracking boom brought money and pride to mayor Hardey and most others I talked to.” 

The communities the author visits share a common position: They are under-resourced and impoverished. The author observes that residents and local politicians welcome polluting industries because those industries are widely seen as their only option. They oppose state and federal politicians who seek to regulate polluting industries because without those industries, they would have no path toward economic success.

“The plants had allowed Bob Hardey to discover his high intelligence and capacity for leadership, his dignity in ways that his schools had failed to do.”

Although Hardey understands the danger of courting polluting industries, his work with such industries has provided him with the opportunity not just to work, but to experience success and self-actualization for the first time. He is, because of this, emotionally indebted to big industry and views it through the prism of his experience. This personal narrative aims to evoke empathy for people like Hardey, who can be dismissed or villainized in the media.

“In a highly risky maneuver, disregarding the advice of their own consulting engineer, and with the okay of a government official also aware of the danger, Texas Brine drilled underneath Bayou Corne. On the books were regulations that were disregarded by both company and state.”

The story of the Bayou Corne sinkhole is one of the text’s key examples of the dangers posed by lack of regulation or regulations that are not enforced. Both Texas Brine and the state of Louisiana failed to take public safety into account when they okayed Texas Brine’s proposed drilling, and the result was a massive environmental and humanitarian disaster.

“Church in Louisiana, usually Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, or Pentecostal, is a pillar of social life.”

In her quest to understand right-wing voters, the author comes to learn that religion plays a huge role in their lives. The church is not only an institution that teaches people their beliefs and values, but it is also the source of social cohesion in communities. It is for this reason that so many people whom the author encounters feel that churches are better situated than the government to provide Americans with charity and welfare services. Hochschild does not go into detail about her opinion of the church in a position of power over the state. Though she makes her political affiliation and general beliefs clear, she attempts to normalize and empathize with these thought processes during her research.

“Environmentalists want to stop the American Dream to protect the endangered toad, but if I had to choose between the American Dream and a toad, hey I’ll take the American Dream.”

This passage reflects the viewpoint of many people the author encounters during her time in Louisiana. They disagree not only with liberal ideas about environmental preservation but also with the way that they perceive liberals try to manipulate their sympathy. In this example, the speaker finds it ludicrous that environmental regulations privilege animals over people.

“A deep story is a feels-as-if story. It’s the story feelings tell in the language of symbols. It removes judgment. It removes fact. It tells us how things feel.”

The Impact of Deep Stories on Political Ideology is one of the key themes in this text. It represents the author’s desire to go beyond analytical politics and better understand the way that affective orientation and emotion shape political opinions. It is her contention that much of what people believe is rooted in feelings rather than analysis, and she explores the role that emotion plays in the beliefs of everyone she interviews in Louisiana during her project.

“The American dream is a dream of progress, the idea that you’re better off than your forbears just as they superseded their parents before you.”

The American Dream is a crucial part of the deep story that the author identifies during her time in Louisiana. A large part of the South’s rightwards turn, the author argues, is a result of economic depression coupled with the belief that white, working-class southerners have been pushed “out of line” by women, people of color, immigrants, and other minorities who now have easier access to the American Dream because they are the recipients of government aid.

“You’re a stranger in your own land. You do not recognize yourself in how others see you. It is a struggle to feel seen and honored. And to feel honored you have to feel, and feel seen, as moving forward. But through no fault of your own and in ways that are hidden you are slipping backwards.”

This passage is a key part of how the author understands the Tea Party’s deep story. She identifies a subset of the population who feel that because they are white and working-class, the American Dream is no longer as accessible as it once was. Minoritarian groups are “cutting in line” and leaving white, working-class Americans behind. Because they feel that their very identities are impugned by the political left, they no longer feel honored or honorable within society.

“It was in church that Janice first learned the honor of work, she says. As an eight-year-old girl I swept out the whole church myself after Sunday and Wednesday services, and mowed the lawn.”

Janice’s story is reflective of many whom the author meets in Louisiana. She values hard work, perseverance, and determination, and she tells the author that she first learned those values at church and from her family. Part of the author’s project is to understand the deep stories of the people she interviews, and she realizes that the value Janice places on hard work is part of why she supports the Republican rather than the Democratic Party. She sees the DFL as a party that is happy to offer handouts to those who are unwilling to work, and she resents the perceived misuse of her tax dollars.

“Pollution is the sacrifice we make for capitalism.”

This sentiment reverberates through this text and is expressed in one form or another by many of the people whom the author interviews. Because so many small communities are dependent on industry, they feel they must accept pollution and environmental damage as the cost of having access to jobs and financial security, speaking to The Impact of Deep Stories on Political Ideology. This belief system is deeply rooted and pushes citizens away from the political left, who would seemingly make things worse by removing the polluting industry altogether.

“Regulation is like cement. You lay it down, it hardens, and then it stays there forever.”

There is a pervasive sentiment amongst the various communities in and around Lake Charles that governmental regulation harms businesses and, by extension, families. Even when governmental regulation of potentially polluting companies saves lives, it is often resented. Additionally, many area residents feel that over-regulation will prevent businesses from putting down roots in their communities. With so few job prospects, they feel that they need the options that petrochemical and other risky companies provide.

“Seated in the Louisiana legislature were many oil men: owners, past company employees, investors, and recipients of campaign donations.”

When Mike Schaff becomes an activist, he begins to understand what he is up against and why so few environmental regulations are enforced in Louisiana. Here, he attends a meeting of the Louisiana state legislature in hopes that a recently proposed bill guaranteeing financial settlements to those impacted by the Bayou Corne sinkhole will pass. This issue reflects the Environmental Challenges Facing Rural, Working-Class Communities. However, he realizes that with so many people in state government who are also employed by oil companies, the bill has little hope of passing.

“The contemporary turn to the right in America has occurred mainly in the South. You don’t have to be southern to be Tea Party, of course, but the white South has been at the center of it.” 

Here, the author details the way that Tea Party beliefs such as an aversion to taxation and governmental regulation have their origins, in many cases, in the American South. She traces a history of northern intervention and the imposition of northern values on the South, noting the way in which it shaped regional resentments that were ultimately reflected in the political ideology of right-wing voters in the nation as a whole.

“The new cotton is oil.”

The author argues that the economy of the South has long been tied to monoculture. Cotton and oil both require large investments and dominate the economic sectors of Southern states, although they arguably bring greater benefit to the “planter classes” who can afford to spend large sums of money to finance production. They ultimately disenfranchise working-class southerners who have been promised financial benefit from the presence of such industries.

“There were fewer and fewer white Americans like us.”

Along with economic depression and cultural marginalization, demographic decline is one of the factors that led to a rightward surge in the rural South. The author notes a pervasive feeling of worry amongst the people she interviews and argues that this is part of the region’s “deep story.”

“Trump is an emotions candidate.”

The author, whose primary interest in politics is the way that emotion shapes political beliefs, argues that Donald Trump speaks to voters’ emotions. She notes the way he both understands the power of emotion in shaping political thought and harnesses its power: He legitimizes the deep stories of those in a certain faction of the American political right and renders their political opinions mainstream.

“If I were to write a letter to friends on the liberal left I would say: ‘Why not get to know some people outside your political bubble?’”

In this passage, the author describes what she would tell friends on both the left and the right about what the “other side” believes. It is the culmination of her empathy-building project, and it reveals the respect and regard she feels for people across the political spectrum.