Estranged in America: Dems and Republicans feel left out

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The districts the Times polled on that question — talking to 3,555 likely voters in California, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota and West Virginia — are not representative of the entire country. But they contain communities that are pulling ahead in America and those that are falling behind, as well as places that mirror the nation’s demographic future and its past.

The findings echo other polling on the question since Trump’s election. And together, the results suggest a rare political moment when Americans on all sides worry they don’t recognize what the country is becoming.

“Normally, even in a politically polarized society, one side wins and they’re content,” said Stephanie McCurry, a historian at Columbia University. “It’s the other side that feels shut out of power.”

The moment now reminds her of the 1850s, when Northerners and Southerners were locked in a morally imbued fight over the nature of American values — and whether America was at its core a slave-owning society. Many Northerners were horrified by the 1857 Dred Scott decision, which effectively declared the United States such a place. Southerners were horrified by Northerners’ reaction to it, McCurry said.

“At that point, what you’re looking at is this sense of powerlessness all around about the ability of any institution to mediate not just a political conflict, but a conflict of fundamental values,” she said. “That’s maybe something like what we’re dealing with right now.”

The Senate’s rancorous fight over Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, she added, has similarly added to pessimism about resolving these conflicts.

In the two years since Trump’s election, protesters and politicians on the left have lamented the erosion of values around tolerance and diversity. On the right, they have continued to mourn the loss of religious and traditional family values at the center of American life.

Hochschild identifies as a liberal herself, and after Trump’s election, she said one of the conservative voters she described in her book sent her an email.

“She said, ‘Well, I guess it’s now your time to feel like a stranger in your own land,’ ” Hochschild said. She acknowledges she has felt this way of late, as she’s watched Trump declare the free press the enemy of the people and question the independence of the judiciary. “I had no idea we could come this far this fast and challenge things I thought were basic,” she said. “It feels like some pillars of our culture are being shaken, stress-tested.”

That is precisely the feeling she had described in Louisiana.