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

The author drives through rural Louisiana along the side of the old Armelise plantation, with Mike Schaff, a man whose family has lived in this area for generations. He points out the site of various family landmarks and the now-vanished town of Banderville, a small community in which Black and white residents lived harmoniously. Mike identifies himself as a Tea Party Republican, and he feels that government should stay out of business in spite of the fact that a largely unregulated drilling company caused a sinkhole that swallowed up a large tract of his property. The author finds it incongruous that Mike could have been the victim of such carelessness and still believe that governmental regulation holds businesses back. She identifies what she calls an “empathy wall” between them. Empathy walls, she explains, are differences of opinion and belief rooted in life experience that prevent people from understanding one another. She goes on to discuss the increasingly divided political landscape in the United States, noting that the Left and the Right fiercely contest each other’s priorities and visions for the nation. Mike, and other Tea Party Republicans, view “Big Government” as wasteful and corrupt, but also as an impediment to the success of small communities like his. The author goes on to describe the way that political divisions increased during the latter half of the 20th century, pointing out that according to research, political identity now divides Americans much more than race.

Hochschild recounts various contemporary ideas about politics, political division, and voting patterns, including those documented in now-famous texts such as Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas. She notes that some political scientists and sociologists argue that conservative voters, misled by manipulative media narratives, vote against their own economic self-interests while others argue that voters care more about sociocultural than economic issues and that conservative voters, for example, prioritize social and cultural issues (like abortion and gun rights) over economic policy. Although the author finds these conversations interesting, she notes a lack of attention to the role that emotion plays in the formation of political opinions. This is the derivation of her idea of a “deep story,” a narrative used to explain the world and its phenomena that is rooted in affective rather than analytical response.

The author chooses to use Lake Charles, Louisiana, as her home base. A community of 74,000 people, Lake Charles is in an area of Louisiana nicknamed “Cancer Alley” for the higher-than-usual rates of cancer, theorized to be the result of loosely regulated petrochemical plants in the region. The author is particularly interested in the divergent views held by right-wing and left-wing Americans on the environment and climate change, and Lake Charles strikes her as a perfect location to study political belief formation in conjunction with environmental issues and big business.

The author meets with Lee Sherman, an 82-year-old former football player and Nascar driver whose work in various polluting industries has left him open to the idea of environmental regulation and preservation despite his dedication to Tea Party politics. Raised by a single mother, Sherman describes himself as an “ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) Baby” and was, as a younger man, socially liberal. His work at PPG is where he first remembers worrying about pollution and the environment. He and his fellow workers were exposed to toxic chemicals and ridiculed by their bosses if they complained. It was from his coworkers, not his supervisors, that he learned how to (try to) keep himself safe at work, and he reflects that many of those men died young, either as the result of workplace accidents or mysterious sicknesses. Part of his job had been the clandestine dumping of toxic chemicals into the local bayou. When those chemicals began to contaminate area seafood (fishing is an important source of revenue for many area communities), people began to complain. It was then that Lee began to see himself as an environmentalist, and he had been quick to admit to having dumped toxic chemicals in various area waters and wetlands. The companies responsible for contaminating the region’s seafood did their best to deflect blame. Against the backdrop of this history, the author is puzzled why Lee would have gravitated toward the Tea Party, a group she perceives as anti-environment.

Hochschild meets with Harold Areno, a Cajun man with deep roots in the Bayou D’Inde area. He shows her pictures of his family and describes the once-regal cypress trees that used to dot the bayou. Toxic waste dumping forever altered the landscape, and many of the trees are now dead. He recalls his childhood. He and his family had kept livestock, hunted, and fished. They needed to purchase very little from the store and only made the trek into town once a month. It had been easy, in those days, to live off the land, and they’d had a relatively happy life. As soon as industry came into the area, the water quality plummeted. There were foul emissions from various local plants, and animals began to die. Not only wild creatures, but livestock were impacted by toxic runoff and dumping, and the author listens to Harold and his family tell story after story about dead fish, turtles, hogs, and cows. They also talk about the human cost of polluting industries. Many people in their family and among their friend group have died of cancer, but no one can recall a death from cancer in the decades before industry arrived in the bayou. The author struggles with the realization that many of the people in this area vote conservative despite conservative politicians’ cozy relationships with big businesses, but learns that they prioritize faith and values, and they feel that conservative candidates reflect their identities and respect their beliefs. They do not feel that respect from liberal politicians or liberal voters. Furthermore, although they love nature and are avid hunters and fishermen, they have come to depend on various polluting industries for their families’ livelihoods and are wary of politicians who swear to put a stop to those industries.

The author attends a swamp-pop dance at a restored Acadian village outside of Lafayette, Louisiana. The party is in honor of Republican US House candidate Charles Boustany. She talks to a series of people, all of whom express support for various Republican candidates, including some whose voting records show a marked lack of interest in environmental regulation, accountability, or cleanup. In an area with some of the most toxic waters in the country, the author is struck by how few people vote for candidates who will help them preserve the environment. She recalls the 2010 oil spill on BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig. The equivalent of one Exxon Valdez spill per day was pumped into the gulf for three months, causing an unprecedented amount of environmental damage. President Obama responded by issuing a temporary moratorium on drilling in the gulf, but that harmed countless people who depended on the oil industry for their salaries. Here, the author realizes, lies the problem: People are dependent on the very industries whose pollution harms the land and their families. They saw Obama’s action as governmental overreach and reasoned that it is in a company’s best interest to prevent spills. Thus, the spill that had happened was surely an accident. Why were they being punished for a company’s mistake?

This section delves deeper into the idea of the “Great Paradox,” or the disconnect between voting patterns and the best interests of voters. Hochschild is particularly interested in the way that voters in conservative states like Louisiana are both statistically more likely to be adversely impacted by pollution and more likely to vote for politicians who do little to work toward environmental preservation and industry regulation. She learns that there is a perception in Louisiana that the oil industry brings jobs to the state, increases its revenue, and decreases its dependence on federal aid. She also learns that history has not borne this idea out, and that Louisiana remains impoverished (the second poorest in the nation) and under-resourced. Oil does push other industries out: Few people want to eat polluted seafood or vacation in waters ravaged by oil spills. She also reflects on the pushback that oil and other polluting industries often receive when they try to establish a foothold in a particular community (residents are often worried about environmental damage) and wonders if such companies had met less resistance in Louisiana because the state was in such dire need of an economic boost.