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

by Arlie Russell Hochschild

If I were to write a letter to my Louisiana friends on the right, I might say: Many progressive liberals aren’t satisfied with the nation’s political choices any more than you are. And many see themselves in some parts of your deep story. As one sixty-year-old white, female, San Francisco–based elementary school teacher put it, “I’m a liberal but, hey, I can sympathize with that part about waiting in line.” I know the goals you have in mind—vital community life, full employment, the dignity of labor, freedom—but will the policies you embrace achieve those goals? You want good jobs and income, of course. You may not want to hear this, but in income and jobs, historically the Democrats have done better than the Republicans. In Bulls, Bears, and the Ballot Box, for example, Bob Deitrick and Lew Goldfarb note that over the last eighty years, on eleven of twelve indicators, the economy has fared better under Democratic presidents than under Republicans.

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