Arlie Hochschild - The Other Side of the Cultural Pay Wall

Renowned sociologist Arlie Hochschild offers a penetrating analysis of contemporary American political and social dynamics. Through a nuanced exploration of working-class experiences, economic disparities, and political allegiances, Hochschild provides critical insights into why many traditional Democratic voters have shifted towards supporting Donald Trump. Her work illuminates the deep emotional and psychological factors that drive political choices, particularly among white working-class Americans, while emphasizing the importance of cross-class understanding and human connection in bridging political divides.

Michael Krasny began by asking Hochschild what she believed had changed in the division of home labor for men and women, which she wrote about in her 1989 best-selling book "Second Shift". They went from there to delve into the communities of poverty Hochschild wrote masterfully about in her later work. She spoke of the ongoing challenges of blue-collar men and read a passage from one of her books to clarify why she believes many of lesser economic means voted for Donald Trump. She spoke of what she believed needed urgently to be done to bring back once-traditional Democrats from the working class who now support Trump and the GOP, and she spoke of what she called "the psychological power of loss."

Krasny talked with her about Obama and his talk years ago of how the people in Pennsylvania only care about their guns and their bibles, and she spoke of her last two books being "an attempt to make us bilingual," with respect to creating greater understanding between the classes. Hochschild then explained what she called "the four-moment shaming ritual of Donald Trump" and Krasny asked her if she perhaps was possibly putting too much stock and hope in the resurgence of the Democratic Party and labor unions. Hochschild argued that the majority of working people and once-strong Democrats voted for Trump because Democrats had nothing to offer them. The two discussed economics, and Hochschild provided her view of what separates liberal from conservative thinking and the importance of human connection with what she ultimately advanced as her idea of how we best get out of our present major source of political stasis.