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

by Arlie Russell Hochschild

As a Team Loyalist, Janice Areno had not allowed herself to feel too badly about pollution. Bayou d’Inde, the rubberized horse. As a loyalist to industry and the Republican Party, she defended herself against “too much” anxiety about pollution, the brown pelican, and human health. For her part, Jackie Tabor allowed herself to feel sad about these things. It was a terrible shame this had happened, she felt. But having permitted herself to feel sad about environmental damage, she renounced the desire to remediate it, because that would call for more dreaded government. Each had a different moment of emotional pause—Janice’s was on the act of admitting to loss and grieving it. Jackie’s important moment of emotional pause was upon the act of renouncing an important desire. A clean environment? Sadly, we can’t have it.