For all the attempts to understand the state of American politics and the blue/red divide, we’ve ignored what economic and cultural loss can do to pride. What happens, Arlie Russell Hochschild asks, when a proud people in a hard-hit region suffer the deep loss of pride and are confronted with a powerful political appeal that makes it feel “stolen”?
Hochschild’s research drew her to Pikeville, Kentucky, in the heart of Appalachia, within the whitest and second-poorest congressional district in the nation, where the city was reeling: coal jobs had left, crushing poverty persisted, and a deadly drug crisis struck the region. Although Pikeville was in the political center thirty years ago, by 2016, 80 percent of the district’s population voted for Donald Trump.
Her exploration of the town’s response to a white nationalist march in 2017—a rehearsal for the deadly Unite the Right march that would soon take place in Charlottesville, Virginia—takes us deep inside a torn and suffering community.
In the new book, "Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right,"
Hochschild focuses on a group swept up in the shifting political landscape: blue-collar men. In small churches, hillside hollers, roadside diners, trailer parks, and Narcotics Anonymous meetings, she introduces us to unforgettable people and offers an original lens through which to see them and the wider world.
Arlie Russell Hochschild is the author of many groundbreaking books, including "The Second Shift," "The Managed Heart," and "The Time Bind" as well as "Strangers in Their Own Land," which became an instant bestseller and was a finalist for a National Book Award, and "Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right." Hochschild is professor emerita of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.
This panel is in a new pre-fund drive format that aims to provide information and discussion on topics pertaining to the 2024 election.
