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Arlie Russell Hochschild

Thursday 2nd of October 2025

By the numbers In 1960, when a survey asked American adults whether it would “disturb” them if their child married a member of the other political party, no more than 5 percent of either party answered “yes.” But in 2010, 33 percent of Democrats and 40 percent of Republicans answered “yes.” In fact, partyism, as some call it, now beats race as the source of divisive prejudice.  Arlie Russell Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land  © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers On average, people in red states die five years earlier than people in blue states. Indeed, the gap in life expectancy between Louisiana (75.7) and Connecticut (80.8) is the same as that between the United States and Nicaragua.  Arlie Russell Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Environmentalism The state always seems to come down on the little  guy. Take this bayou. If your motorboat leaks a little gas into the water, the warden'll write you up. But if companies  leak thousands of gallons of it and kill all the life here? The state lets them go. If you shoot an endangered brown pelican, they'll put you in jail. But if a company kills the brown pelican by poisoning the fish he eats? They let it go. I think they overregulate  the bottom because it's harder to regulate the top. A Louisiana resident on enforcement of environmental regulations in the state, quoted by Arlie Russell Hochschild, in Strangers in Their Own Land © 2017 Kwiple.com
Pollution The Sabine River is a public river. But if you can't drink in the river and you can't swim in the river, or fish in the river, or baptize your young in the river, then it's not your river. It's the paper mill's river. A resident living along the Sabine River in Louisiana, downriver from a paper mill, quoted by Arlie Russell Hochschild, in Strangers in Their Own Land © 2017 Kwiple.com
Tea Partiers “A lot of us have done okay, but we don't want to lose what we've got, see it given away.” When I ask him what he saw as being “given away,” it was not public waters given to dumpers, or clean air given to smoke stacks. It was not health or years of life. It was not lost public sector jobs. What he felt was being given away was tax money to non-working, non-deserving people — and not just tax money, but honor too. … “These days, American men are an endangered species too.” A Tea Partier quoted by Arlie Russell Hochschild, in Strangers in Their Own Land © 2017 Kwiple.com
 
Tea Partiers Virtually every Tea Party advocate I interviewed for this book has personally benefited from a major government service or has close family who have. … Most said, “Since it's there, why not use it?” But many were ashamed and asked me to dissociate their identity from such an act, which I've done. But shame didn't stop those who disapproved of public services from using them.  Arlie Russell Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land  © 2017 Kwiple.com