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

by Arlie Russell Hochschild

What was life like in the plants themselves? I wondered. Were they governed by Donny’s Cowboy perspective or Mike Tritico’s precautionary principle? One safety inspector for Axiall—which had an enormous explosion in 2013 and again in 2014—had the job of trying to reduce the risk of accidents. The young man climbed towers and squeezed under machines to check pipes and valves and attach small red flags to pipes that needed replacing or valves tightening. Operators didn’t like him coming around because each red flag meant extra work, he said. Some waved him away, “No, not today.” Then he said, “They would gang up. I’d have to call their boss, and they hated that. So when they saw me, they’d say, ‘Here comes Big Brother.’ It was a stressful job.”