catpdx 's review for:

Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild

---

I'll be honest - I started and stopped this one and skimmed around. I'm sure it's an insightful read, but I just don't have it in me to force anymore empathy right now with the kind of voter who uses 'economic anxiety' or religion as reasons to vote not only explicitly against their own interests, but in ways that are bigoted, hypocritical, and that are at this moment tearing families apart. I just don't. I was born and spent most of my life around it. I 'get' these people; I know this story, but not how to move past it, and, frankly, I am more concerned with the vulnerable. Maybe I'll come back to it another time.