Deep Dive with Shawn C. Fettig

Arlie Hochschild: Strangers in Their Own Land (Conservatives or Liberals?)

Aug 5, 2022

47:10

Today marks the beginning of a new Deep Dive adventure - a miniseries! In pursuit of understanding conservative voters, especially nationalists - nationally and globally - over the next three episodes, I am talking to three researchers who have dove deep into this world, each contributing something unique and fascinating to the literature.

In this first episode in the series, I'm talking to Dr. Arlie Hochschild, sociologist and professor at the University of California-Berkeley, about her book Strangers in Their Own Land. The book, published in 2016, chronicles her immersion in what would become Trump Country - deep red, rural Louisiana to understand what motivates their politics, their policy preferences, and their social outlook. We talk about White, blue-collar people in the United States and how their deep story has morphed from one of loss, to one of having been stolen from; how Donald Trump harnessed and exploited that energy and gave it a focus and a target – immigrants, black folks, women, queer folks, the administrative state, and liberals; and how that culminated in an attack on the seat of democracy, the United States Capitol, on January 6th, 2021.

Mentioned:
Dignity in a Digital Age - Ro Khanna
The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing us Apart - Bill Bishop (with Robert G. Cushing)

Recommended:
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right - Arlie Hochschild