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

“Looking out the window of the truck, it is clear that Mike and I see different things. Mike sees a busy, beloved, bygone world. I see a field of green.”

This quote comes from the author’s observations of Mike’s corner of the country, and it acts as a metaphor for the broader questions about political divisions that this book seeks to answer. The author contends that the Left and the Right look at the same idea or experience and draw different conclusions, and she uses the way that she and Mike see the same patch of land differently to illustrate their divergent perspectives.

“I came to realize that the Tea Party was not so much an official political group as a culture, a way of seeing and feeling about a place and its people.”

The author is interested in The Impact of Deep Stories on Political Ideology, and here she observes that the Tea Party, although it is perceived by many in her own circle as a political party, is experienced in rural America as an entire way of understanding the world. It is rooted in emotional response rather than analytical thought.

“Tea Party adherents seemed to arrive at their dislike of the federal government via three routes: through their religious faith (the government curtailed the church, they felt), through hatred of taxes (which they saw as too high and too progressive), and through its impact on their loss of honor.”

The author is interested in how Tea Party conservatives form their political beliefs, especially as she is of the opinion that they often vote against their economic best interests. Here, she observes the role that emotion plays in belief formation, and she begins to better understand the role that “deep stories” play in the development of belief systems. By breaking down the thought processes of these conservative voters for a primarily liberal readership, the author evokes