3. Sense of alienation from mainstream culture, of being “strangers in their own land”
The concentration of college educated, culturally liberal people in cities, and the resulting ‘liberal bubbles’ in which rural people and working folks are utterly foreign is brilliantly described by Sarah Smarsh both in her book, Heartland, and in the article, “Country Pride”. Elite liberal media, Smarsh also writes, has consistently been out-of-touch with rural people and their concerns, alternating between ignoring this swath of the country and badly generalizing and mis-representing it.
Arlie Hochschild’s Strangers in Their Own Land describes this deep sense of alienation among people in rural Louisiana, in part because of their declining economic fortunes and sense of being ‘passed over’ by government elites who favor groups they feel are less deserving.
Jonathan Metzl’s Dying of Whiteness makes clear the racial underpinnings of at least some of this grievance in his interviews with people in Missouri, Tennessee and Kansas.
Liberal, progressive and Democratic leaders frequently talk about our dynamic cities, with influential thinkers like Richard Florida pushing the notion of ‘cultural creatives’ flocking to cities seeking innovation, creativity and dynamism. In Listen Liberal, Thomas Frank makes the case that urban innovation hubs have become central to the liberal imagination and to the culture and policies of the Democratic Party. The message to rural areas has been that we’ve been ‘left behind’, that we’re stagnant, stuck in outmoded thinking, etc. This overlooks a great body of innovation that is happening in many rural places, but even more to the point, it makes urban life and culture the standard, the benchmark, by which rural communities clearly don’t measure up. Which then further exacerbates the anti-elitism.
RECOMMENDED READINGS:
Arlie Hochschild, “I Spent Five Years with Some of Trump’s Biggest Fans: Here’s What They Won’t Tell You”
Sarah Smarsh, “Country Pride: What I Learned Growing Up in Rural America”
Sarah Smarsh, “Liberal Blind Spots are Hiding the Truth about ‘Trump Country’”
FOR A DEEPER LOOK:
Arlie Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, 2016, The New Press
Sarah Smarsh, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, 2018, Scribner