Tea Party Analysis in Strangers in Their Own Land

A grassroots right-wing American populist movement that started in 2009 and finds its strongest following in the Southern United States. Two-thirds of the people Hochschild interviewed for this book (40 of 60) supported Tea Party candidates and ideas. The movement’s main focus is substantially reducing government taxation and regulation of all kinds.

Tea Party Quotes in Strangers in Their Own Land

The Strangers in Their Own Land quotes below are all either spoken by Tea Party or refer to Tea Party. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

Trust, Empathy, and Political Progress Theme Icon

How can a system both create pain and deflect blame for that pain?

Related Characters: Arlie Russell Hochschild (speaker)

Page Number and Citation: 10

Explanation and Analysis:

The Tea Party listener felt Christiane Amanpour was implicitly scolding her. The woman didn't want to be told she should feel sorry for, or responsible for, the fate of the [sick or starving] child. Amanpour was overstepping her role as a commentator by suggesting how to feel. The woman had her feeling guard up.

Related Characters: Arlie Russell Hochschild (speaker)

Page Number and Citation: 128

Explanation and Analysis:

You are a stranger in your own land. You do not recognize yourself in how others see you. It is a struggle to feel seen and honored. And to feel honored you have to feel—and feel seen as—moving forward. But through no fault of your own, and in ways that are hidden, you are moving backward.

Related Characters: Arlie Russell Hochschild (speaker)

Page Number and Citation: 144

Explanation and Analysis:

The “federal government” filled a mental space in Mike's mind—and the minds of all those on the right I came to know—associated with a financial sinkhole.

Related Characters: Arlie Russell Hochschild (speaker), Mike Schaff

Related Symbols: The Bayou Corne Sinkhole

Page Number and Citation: 202

Explanation and Analysis:

How do you join the identity politics parade and also bring it to a halt?

Related Characters: Arlie Russell Hochschild (speaker)

Page Number and Citation: 212

Explanation and Analysis:

For the Tea Party around the country, the shifting moral qualifications for the American Dream had turned them into strangers in their own land, afraid, resentful, displaced, and dismissed by the very people who were, they felt, cutting in line. The undeclared class war transpiring on a different stage, with different actors, and evoking a different notion of fairness was leading those engaged in it to blame the “supplier” of the impostors—the federal government.

Related Characters: Arlie Russell Hochschild (speaker)

Page Number and Citation: 218

Explanation and Analysis:

While economic self-interest is never entirely absent, what I discovered was the profound importance of emotional self-interest—a giddy release from the feeling of being a stranger in one’s own land.

Related Characters: Arlie Russell Hochschild (speaker), Donald Trump

Page Number and Citation: 228

Explanation and Analysis:

Louisianans are sacrificial lambs to the entire American industrial system. Left or right, we all happily use plastic combs, toothbrushes, cell phones, and cars, but we don't all pay for it with high pollution. As research for this book shows, red states pay for it more—partly through their own votes for easier regulation and partly through their exposure to a social terrain of politics, industry, television channels, and a pulpit that invites them to do so. In one way, people in blue states have their cake and cat it too, while many in red states have neither. Paradoxically, politicians on the right appeal to this sense of victimhood, even when policies such as those of former governor Jindal exacerbate the problem.

Related Characters: Arlie Russell Hochschild (speaker), Bobby Jindal

Page Number and Citation: 232

Explanation and Analysis:

Tea Party Term Timeline in Strangers in Their Own Land

The timeline below shows where the term Tea Party appears in Strangers in Their Own Land. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

Government Regulation and Individual Freedom Theme Icon

Personal Identity and Emotional Self-Interest Theme Icon

...about her troubled upbringing, which inspired many questions—including why Sharon, “an enthusiastic member” of the Tea Party , found paid parental leave “unthinkable,” even though she would benefit from it. (full context)

The Environment and the Economy Theme Icon

Mike Schaff proclaims his loyalty to the Tea Party . Hochschild first met him at an environmental rally where he was speaking. A few... (full context)

Capitalism, Media, and Class Conflict Theme Icon

...Louisiana, only 14% of whites voted for Obama and more congressional representatives have joined the Tea Party Caucus than any other state. (full context)

...town of Lake Charles: Sally Cappel, a Democrat whose lifelong friend Shirley Slack is a Tea Party supporter. Sally and Shirley keep keys to each other’s houses, but they watch different news... (full context)

...about “the rise of the right.” Liberal scholars suspect that corporate donors are orchestrating grassroots Tea Party activism, and while Hochschild agrees that “purchased political influence is real,” she believes that it... (full context)

Other scholars believe that the Tea Party emerged from specific Southern regional traditions and cultural values. Hochschild agrees that the South prides... (full context)

...research resulted in “4,690 pages of transcripts based on interviews with a core of forty Tea Party advocates and twenty others from various walks of life,” some of whom Hochschild chose to... (full context)

Hochschild’s subjects varied widely in areas like their commitment to church, adherence to mainline Tea Party views, and suspicion of the poor and President Obama. But Louisiana was still a world... (full context)

Before setting off for Louisiana, Hochschild re-read the “ Tea Party bible,” Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Rand argued that “greed is good” and helping the poor... (full context)

...environmentalist in the 1980s after leaving PPG, but now he is an activist for the Tea Party . Hochschild wonders how Sherman squares his opposition to regulation with his past environmentalism and... (full context)

Hochschild sees three main reasons Tea Party voters reject government intervention: religion, taxes, and honor. Lee’s main complaint is taxes—he thinks that... (full context)

Hochschild attends campaign event thrown by Republican representative Charles Boustany, who is running against Tea Party favorite Jeff Landry. Hochschild wonders whether the candidates would remember disasters like the pollution in... (full context)

...that story excludes. She is clearly not yet “over the empathy wall,” even though the Tea Party members she met surprised her with their warmth and generosity. To these voters, “there was... (full context)

...try “to stimulate new jobs by creating an attractive public sector.” Hochschild argues that the Tea Party chooses the “low road” but progressive states like California choose the “high road.” (full context)

...enjoy fishing in the bayou and are mostly “Cajun, Catholic, and conservative, predisposed to the Tea Party .” Schaff, the most politically active among them, “wished to feel himself in a nearly... (full context)

...their parents’ dime even while they “felt proud to be ‘above consumerism.’” She suggests that Tea Party advocates claim to be “‘above the government and all its services’ to show the world... (full context)

...diplomats try to understand how other leaders imagine their national stories. Hochschild’s version of the Tea Party ’s deep story “focuses on relationships between social groups within our national borders.” (full context)

...dollars; perhaps whites should band together and form their own line. Other academics who interviewed Tea Party voters also found similar attitudes. (full context)

Hochschild sees race as a critical undertone to the Tea Party ’s resentment. Many of her acquaintances explicitly talked about Muslims and Mexicans but refused to... (full context)

Hochschild explains that many of her older white Tea Party interviewees only encountered black people through media representations that hide the complexity of black life.... (full context)

Gender also plays a key role in the Tea Party ’s deep story—every woman Hochschild interviewed had needed to work at some point in their... (full context)

Tea Party members “thought about the government and the market in the same way others think of... (full context)

...she does not want people “shouting it from the mountaintops.” She sees hatred for the Tea Party as the “consensus in liberal Hollywood.” (full context)

...that many Louisianans are not aware of these dangers. But he struggles to square his Tea Party politics “on matters of government and tax” with his newfound environmental advocacy, in which (to... (full context)

Mike wants to bring the Louisiana Tea Party to his side. His state has 40% of the United States’ wetlands, provides more than... (full context)

But both groups of Tea Party activists were confused by Mike’s environmentalism—the environment “was a liberal cause.” Mike suggests that environmental... (full context)

Hochschild wonders about the historical influences that have led to the Tea Party ’s rise. Clearly, it takes from a long tradition of American populism, but it is... (full context)

...resisters to civil rights” dramatically lose their sense of honor in the national eye. Many Tea Party members were teenagers at the time and felt that the moralizing North was intervening again... (full context)

Hochschild’s friends in the Tea Party adopted parts of this 1960s and 1970s culture while rejecting others. One appreciated “feminist” Sarah... (full context)

...Civil War), and Jackie Tabor felt that Islam was a threat to American culture. The Tea Party allowed its members to forget the pleas of other downtrodden groups, shed liberal feeling rules... (full context)

But Hochschild’s acquaintances in the Louisiana Tea Party still voted for him and opposed his successor, Democrat John Bel Edwards, who raised taxes... (full context)

...stakes and effects of politics. She includes two letters she has written, one explaining the Tea Party ’s viewpoint to her own progressive community and the other explaining progressives’ viewpoint to her... (full context)

Lee Sherman continues to maintain his old racecars and campaign for anti-EPA Tea Party candidates. Mike Tritico and Donny McCorquodale continue their lively discussions over dinner at Brother Cappy... (full context)

...asking whether “white racism [is] the overriding source of support for Donald Trump” and the Tea Party , Hochschild suggests that many (but not all) of the people she interviewed in Louisiana... (full context)

All in all, Hochschild interviewed 40 Tea Party members and 20 other community members for context. Interviewees signed consent forms and could ask... (full context)

Tea Party Term Analysis

Tea Party Quotes in Strangers in Their Own Land

Tea Party Term Timeline in Strangers in Their Own Land