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The election of Barack Obama marked the emergence of the Tea Party, a radical right-wing movement that challenged the Republican establishment and ultimately fueled the rise of Donald Trump.
Where did the Tea Party come from? That’s the question renowned sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild set out to explore in her new book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right.
She traveled from her home in Berkeley, California—educated, affluent, liberal, and diverse—to one of the poorest, least educated, most conservative, and most racially divided states in America: Louisiana. There she spent five years listening to Tea Party conservatives who later came to support Donald Trump—mainly working-class whites.
Hochschild was a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, during the tumultuous period of the 1960s—one that shaped her values, politics, and academic research. Unlike many sociologists—who tend to study how societies are organized—Hochschild has focused on the role of human emotions in shaping relationships and political behavior. She is probably best-known as the author of The Second Shift, a pioneering exploration of the division of labor between men and women at home.
We discussed her research for Strangers in Their Own Land, what it could tell us about how divided America has become—and how we might begin to bridge our differences.
Via David Hain
