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

"It is one of the central political puzzles of our time: Parts of the country that depend on the safety-net programs supported by Democrats are increasingly voting for Republicans who favor shredding that net." - Who Turned My Blue State Red

Alec MacGillis, author of the above NYTimes article, suggests that rather than voting for Republicans, those who need Medicaid and food stamps are disengaged and not voting, while those white conservatives who are more well off are voting against public dollars for the poor.

Arlie Russell Hochschild, professor emerita of sociology from UC Berkeley and author of "Strangers In Their Own Land" isn't buying it, and wants to test this idea. Her thought is that rather than being disengaged, these citizens are actively voting against their own self interest. Her goal is to choose a problem that affluent voters in poor red states personally experience and demonstrate that they don't want government help for that either, and to dive into the psychology of why these voters are clearly and demonstrably voting against their own self interest.

To that end, she examines the "keyhole" issue of pollution, and heads to Lake Charles, Louisiana, to find white families affected by pollution who are voting against government regulation of the private sector & to downsize the EPA, and she wants to find out why.

The book offers two main insights which I'll cover in this book report.

1. Describes "The Great Paradox." Establishes clearly through facts that Lake Charles Louisiana is part of a highly polluted region due to poor practices by oil industry companies, and establishes through personal interviews that inhabitants suffer from serious illness such as cancer as a result of the polluted environment.
2. Theories for why inhabitants, who are clearly suffering from this pollution, continue to vote against broader regulation.

Let's quickly establish #1 and then dive into #2.

The Great Paradox

But first, a pause for Bay Area Bubble Reactions.
1) What is Lake Charles Louisiana? Is that a place? Yes, it is a place. Here it is on a map. Also notice neighboring towns "Westlake" and "Mossville", mentioned in the "Erasing Mossvile" article linked below.
2) Wait what? There's places in the U.S. where people are suffering from illnesses related to pollution?? You mean the Erin Brockovich movie hasn't fixed this issue once and for all for the country? 
Yes. This region of Louisiana was home to an ethylene dichloride spill - the largest chemical leak in American history. Also, at the Napoleonville salt dome, companies rent space in underground caverns to store hazardous waste. One company allegedly drilled too far into one cavern, ten years later causing a 26 acre sinkhole which swallows up entire trees and "burps up" toxic methane gas.

Hochschild actually interviews a man who worked for a company, PPG (Pittsburgh Plate Glass), who was asked by his supervisors to dump toxic waste into public water.

Large portions of "Strangers in their own land" are the author interviewing local residents listing off fish that I've never heard of, lamenting decreases in ecologic populations and also lamenting they can no longer swim in the rivers or eat the fish.

"While most people in Mossville blame the plants for their ailments, many Westlake residents have a different take. Of the people I interviewed, some emphatically denied a link between chronic disease and plant emissions while others said they’d never given it much thought and hoped it wasn’t true. Another, a man undergoing cancer treatment, said pollution might play a role in his disease but didn’t believe Westlake was any more polluted than other places." - "Erasing Mossvile - How Pollution Killed a Louisiana Town"

From Strangers in their Own Land, a man named Harold Areno describes his family history.  

"My brother-in-law J.D. 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. And others up the bayou: Edward May and Lambert both died with cancer. Julia and Wendell, live two miles from here, they got it. My sister grew up here but moved over to Houston River and she's fighting cancer. And my other brother-in-law, he had prostate cancer that went into the bone." (Both Annette [Harold's wife] and Harold are cancer survivors.) 

'The only one that didn't get cancer was my daddy,' Harold says, 'and he never worked in the plants. Everybody else - all us kids and our spouses that lived on these forty acres - came down with cancer.' 

In Harold's immediate family, all those who got cancer, except for Annette and Harold died of it. 

WHAT?

These same people, Harold and Annette Areno, vote republican. They voted for Bobby Jindal twice, and Romney in the 2012 presidential election. Though they know plainly that "Republicans stand for big business. They won't help us with the problems [pollution] we've got here", they continue to vote for them because "Republicans put God and family on their side."

The author notes, "In remarks to the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank, he [Bobby Jindal] had said that emissions regulations and environmental practices were a way President Obama was 'holding our economy hostage to their radical ideas.'"

And most shocking of all, "The Arenos had voted for Republican congressman David Vitter, who voted in 2011 to eliminate the entire Environmental Protection Agency."

Ok, so let's get this straight. Here's a couple whose ENTIRE FAMILY except one grandfather HAS CANCER and whose entire family except them DIED from cancer as a direct result of environmental pollution from oil companies in the region, and they voted for a congressman who wants to ELIMINATE the EPA.

And, to make matters worse, it's not random that the oil companies chose to locate in Lake Charles, Louisiana. In 1984, the California Waste Management Board paid Cerell Associates $500,000 to define communities that wouldn't resist siting of LULUs (Locally Undesirable Land Use). Full pdf here.

Least Likely To Resist	Most Likely To Resist
Southern, Midwestern communities	Northeastern, western, California
Rural communities	Urban communities
Open to promises of economic benefits	Don't care or benefits are minor
Conservative, Republican, Free-Market	Liberal, Democrat, "Welfare State"
Above Middle Age	Young and Middle Aged
High School or less education	College-educated
Low income	Middle and upper income
Catholics	Other
Not involved in social issues	Activist
Old-time residents (20+ years)	Residents for 5-26 years
"Nature exploitative occupations" (farming, ranching, mining)	Professional (i.e. "YUPPIES")

What could possibly be causing this "Great Paradox"? Why are these groups unlikely to resist LULUs? To answer this, Hochschild believes we must examine the "Deep Story".

The Deep Story

A deep story is a feels-as-if story-it's the story feelings tell, in the language of symbols. It removes fact. It tells us how things feel. Such a story permits those on both sides of the political spectrum to stand back and explore the subjective prism through which the party on the other side sees the world.
- Strangers in their Own Land

Hochschild writes the deep story of the Tea Party in second person in Chapter 9, Part 3 of Strangers in their Own Land

You are patiently standing in a long line. [...] The American Dream, the goal of everyone waiting in line, [...] is a dream of progress - the idea that you're better off than your forebears [...] - and extends beyond money and stuff.

You haven't gotten a raise in years, and there is no talk of one. Actually, if you are short a high school diploma, or even a BA, your income has dropped over the last twenty years. That has happened to your buddies too; in fact, some of them have stopped looking for good jobs, because they figure for guys like them, good jobs aren't out there.

[...] Look! You see people cutting in line ahead of you! [...] As they cut in, it feels like you are being moved back. [...] Through affirmative action plans, [...] they are being given preference for places in colleges and universities, [...] jobs, welfare payments, and free lunches. [...] Women, immigrants, refugees, public sector workers - where will it end? Your money is running through a liberal sympathy sieve you don't control or agree with. [...] And what about you? You've suffered floods, oil spills, and chemical leaks. There are days when you feel like a refugee yourself. (location 2331). [...] The line cutters irritate you. They are violating rules of fairness. You resent them, and you feel it's right that you do. So do your friends. Fox commentators reflect your feelings, for your deep story is also the Fox News deep story. You're a compassionate person. But now you've been asked to extend your sympathy to all the people who have cut in front of you. So you have your guard up against requests for sympathy. [...] You've suffered a good deal yourself, but you aren't complaining about it.

[...] Then you become suspicious. If people are cutting in line ahead of you, someone must be helping them. Who? [...] His name is Barack Hussein Obama. [...] He's helping them. He feels extra sympathy for them that he doesn't feel for you. He's on their side. He's telling you that these line cutters deserve special treatment, that they've had a harder time than you've had. You don't live near the line cutters or have close friends in most categories of the line cutters, but from what you can see or hear on Fox News, the real story doesn't correspond to his story about the line cutters, which celebrates so many black people, women, and immigrants. (emphasis mine). [...] You feel betrayed. The president is their president, not your president.

Recurring Motifs

There are several different motifs repeated throughout interviews in the book, and highlighted in the deep story above. Several of these motifs, namely the economic hope gap, proportionality and distrust of the "out" group continue to come up in future books on the reading list as well, so we'll come back to them in future posts.

Economic Hope Gap

The tea party deep story hits on the hope gap when talking about wage stagnation and inability to reach the American Dream of succeeding in comparison to forebears. There was an initial theory by the media that those who were struggling economically gravitated towards Trump, but it seems to be slightly more nuanced than that. Summarized well in this article, "People who have lost something aren’t voting for Trump, at least not uniformly. It’s the people who think they’re about to lose something."

Trump says "Make America Great Again," and it's clear how that resonates with this deep story about being set back and being unable to be as successful as their forebears would identify with this slogan!

In contrast, as a woman and a racial minority, "Make America Great Again" sounds ridiculous! I like working outside the home for equal pay and being able to vote, thanks.
But more seriously, the population of Silicon Valley is full of immigrants who are living and experiencing the American Dream, are vastly better off than their forebears, and do experience the America of today as a land of plenty. So it can be eye opening as an empathy exercise to learn about the frustration of those who are having a different experience. 

Proportionality

Essentially, Hochschild's case is that the left and the right view "fairness" differently. The left focuses on the unfairness between the 1 percent and the 99 percent, and "is expressed in the moral vocabulary of a 'fair share' of resources and a properly proportioned society' "(location 2526). Meanwhile, "the right's deep story is found in the language of 'makers' and 'takers'." (location 2526). 

The members of the right interviewed in the book believe strongly in the moral value of reward for work, and feel a lot of pride about not taking "a dime from the government "(location 2634).

They are really indignant about the idea of welfare recipients and largely view welfare recipients as scammers, and liberals and the government as scammers for trying to convince them to feel sorry for the welfare recipients. Janice speaks of "parents driving up in Lexus cars to drop their children at a government supported Head Start program. The government is trying to get her to feel sorry for people like that, Janice feels. She's not having it. Get a job" (location 2682).

Let's look at a quote from this same Janice.

"Is she so indignant about idle parents that she won't reach out to the child? Does she oppose Head Start or subsidized lunch? 'I would hope that the child would say 'I'm going to work hard and get me an education and good job and get myself out of this environment,' Janice answers. Beyond that, her solution is to get children 'churched' and to limit the fertility of poor women. 'Some people say I'm too hard-nosed,' she says again, 'but after one or two children, I'd have her tubes tied" (location 2698).

Ok, but just a note for readers, before getting incensed, we'll learn in the next book The Righteous Mind why trying to respond to the facts people are saying is totally pointless, because it's not how people's minds work, and why replying with facts is not the right way to change people's minds.

Pride in Endurance

Hochschild touches on this in the deep story, saying "You've suffered a good deal yourself, but you aren't complaining about it" and "You've suffered floods, oil spills, and chemical leaks. There are days when you feel like a refugee yourself." There are two main reasons for endurance she explores in her book, one is endurance for the higher end goal of jobs and capitalism, and the other is the idea of endurance as a Christian value.

Hocschild writes of endurance, "Endurance wasn't just a moral value; it was a practice. It was work of an emotional sort. Not claiming to be a victim, accommodating the downside of loose regulations out of a loyalty to free enterprise - this was a tacit form of heroism, hidden to incurious liberals. Sometimes you had to endure bad news, Janice felt, for a higher good, such as jobs in oil." (location 2600).

Another woman, Jackie Tabor, says "I started to learn the Bible, and it said that 'those who wait on the Lord will mount up on wings like eagles. They will run and they won't grow weary. [...] So that means when everything's right, things will happen. We don't necessarily have to make things happen." Jackie too "could accommodate the downside of the free market and sadly that included the bad news of industrial pollution."

This sort of belief and explanation may be contributing to the "Least Resistant Personality" described in the Cerell report.

The Rapture

Related to the idea of pride in endurance is that of the rapture, which many of the people in the book are fervent believers of. In Peter 3:10, it says "The day of the Lord will come [...] in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up". 

Derwin Areno, the son of Harold and Annette Areno, says "We'll probably never see the bayou like God made it in the beginning until He fixes it himself. And that will happen pretty shortly, so it don't matter how much man destroys." Harold and Annette believe that man should fix the earth and environmental damage before the rapture, but others, such as Derwin and another interviewee Madonna, seem to believe that the rapture is inevitable, and humankind taking action against environmental pollution may be futile and pointless.

Distrust / Assuming the worst about "out" groups

"One way of reinforcing this 'high' of a united brother and sisterhood of believers is to revile and expel members of out groups. In his speeches, Trump has spoken of "something within Islam which hates Christians," and of his intention to ban all Muslims from entering the country. He has spoken of expelling all undocumented people of Mexican origin. [...] Such scapegoating reinforces the joyous unity of the gathering. The act of casting out the 'bad one' helps fans unite in a shared sense of being the 'good one' "(location 3738).

One woman, telling the author what she likes about Rush Limbaugh, says "His criticism of 'femi-nazis', you know, feminists, women who want to be equal to men" (location 484). (Yeah you read that right...)

Jackie Tabor says, "We are protecting Muslims and persecuting Christians. Have you ever seen a Muslim charity event for people in need, or soup kitchen for the homeless? A Muslim Thanksgiving? Where is the Muslim name on the Declaration of Independence?" (location 3614). 

This sort of out group discrimination can be hard to accept for liberals from diverse areas, and Hochschild attempts to explain it with the "deep story" and the idea that these people feel their own religion and traditions and status quo are threatened by these out groups.

To be honest, I didn't find the "deep story" of this book sufficient to cross the empathy wall when reading statements like these. We'll come back to this in discussion of The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt, which explains how these out group discriminations evolved in our human ancestors and why they may be prevalent / appeal to conservatives, and it may make more sense at that point. Even if it still provokes a feeling of anger or upset, it may provoke less confusion.

Feeling of being judged by Liberals

Quotes from the book explain it best.

"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" (location 3644).

"'People think we're not good people if we don't feel sorry for blacks and immigrants and Syrian refugees,' one man told me. 'But I am a good person and I don't feel sorry for them.'" (location 3755).

Hochschild writes that those in the South also have a tendency to identify with those "up" the social ladder, such as successful businesspeople, which may add insult to injury in this situation.

This was a completely new concept for me! I had no idea these conservative groups are affected by what liberals think. But it does explain why people resonated so much with Donald Trump and his total lack of political correctness. She writes, "Trump was throwing off not only a set of 'politically correct' attitudes, but a set of feeling rules- that is, a set of ideas about the right way to feel regarding blacks, women, immigrants, gays." (location 3746). 

Lack of identification with the President

Hochschild writes, "When Obama first took office, rumors spread that he would take peoples' guns away, and stores around DeRidder, Lee Sherman told me, sold out of ammunition. Another man told me that a minister even lead his congregation to Walmart to stock up."

Not only is this hilarious (except for the guns part), it mirrors the liberal bubble's reaction to Trump's election, donating in panicked droves to Planned Parenthood, ACLU, and SPLC, so I think we can all identify with this one :).

Closing Thoughts

In summary, the deep story of the Tea Party provides an explanation for citizens voting against their own self interest in the keyhole issue of pollution. Though their happiness, health, and wellbeing is clearly affected by pollution, they overlook the specific issue of environmental regulation as a byproduct of a capitalist society because of their ideas about proportional fairness, value of endurance and possibly because of beliefs in the futility of effort due to the upcoming Rapture. 

Trump appealed to this bloc because he offered a freedom from political correctness, resonated with their ideas about proportional fairness and condemnation of out groups, and appealed to the hope gap with "Make America Great Again."

Strangers in their Own Land is a meticulously researched book filled with facts, personal interviews, and the author's own beautifully written perspective. In my opinion it lays an excellent foundation for future learning with the rest of the books on the list.

I want to add a quick note for those readers who may be put off by some of the quotes from conservatives about children born poor or statements on out-groups, though it may seem uneducated or illogical, it's important not to take these things literally, and rather as an effort by the speakers of trying to put their amorphous feelings of fairness into words.

We'll learn more in The Righteous Mind, the next book, about how the human brain works and why it is utterly futile to debate spoken statements with opposing facts, or even to take spoken statements at face value and draw conclusions based upon them. Coming soon!