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

by Arlie Russell Hochschild

In all the talk at the gatherings for Congressmen Boustany and Landry and around the table at the Republican Women of Southwest Louisiana, I heard a great deal about freedom in the sense of freedom to—to talk on your cellphone as you drove a car, to pick up a drive-in daiquiri with a straw on the side, to walk about with a loaded gun. But there was almost no talk about freedom from such things as gun violence, car accidents, or toxic pollution. General Honoré was no nervous nelly, but he was mindful of the vulnerable communities around the “self-regulated” plants. “Part of the psychological program is that people think they’re free when they’re not,” he said. “A company may be free to pollute, but that means the people aren’t free to swim.”