Sunday, January 22, 2017

Two stories about white Trump supporters from "Mother Jones"

These articles make an excellent contrast.

Rick Perlstein understands that there is a white Southern narrative based that is white supremacist but typically packaged in more abstract pretensions: Peter's Choice Mother Jones Jan/Feb 2017.

Arlie Russell Hochschild seems to have only a dim understanding of that reality: I Spent 5 Years With Some of Trump's Biggest Fans. Here's What They Won't Tell You. Mother Jones Sept/Oct 2016.

Also, Perlstein actually took the trouble to fact-check some of the whiny-white-guy claims on which he's reporting. Hochschild's article, like other presentations I read and heard from her, seems to take the white-white-people claims at face value.

But facts matter. If the worldview someone is describing to you referring to their immediate environment isn't consistent with the facts, that tells you something important about what goes on in their construction of their narratives.

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