I owe so many thanks.
My first big thanks go to Sally Cappel. One Sunday in Berkeley when my former graduate student, Manuel Vallee, and his wife, Alice Cappel, were visiting, Manuel asked what I was researching. When I replied, “the political divide in America—I think I should get out of Berkeley, maybe go south,” Alice said immediately, “My mother is a progressive, her lifelong friend is Tea Party, and you should visit them!” It wasn’t long before an invitation arrived from Sally Cappel to visit Lake Charles, Louisiana, and my adventure began. The Cappel home became my home away from home as I began interviews around Lake Charles and elsewhere around the state on what became ten expeditions between 2011 and 2016. It was in Sally and Fred’s cozy kitchen, the walls covered with vibrant oil paintings, an overflowing basket collection, a sign hung in the window that said “EAT,” aromas from a pot on the large iron stove, that I first placed my tape recorder on the table and conducted four focus groups. (Appendix A describes my full research design.) Sally’s Tea Party friend Shirley Slack also invited me to stay with her in Opelousas, where we browsed through her Louisiana State University yearbook and family photos, visited her church, the nursing home where her mother had stayed, and her granddaughter’s school, and walked through her family graveyard. Her husband, Booty, drove us in his truck past tree-shrouded oil pumping rigs to his favorite fishing spot. This book could not have been written without Sally and Shirley and their families.
My heartfelt thanks to the Tea Party enthusiasts who allowed me into their lives. You gave me your trust, your time, and your insight, and you extended your famous Southern hospitality. Most of all, you shared with me the hope that something good could come of this. You probably won’t agree with all I say in this book, but I hope you feel I’ve been true to your experience and perspective.
Many thanks to Susan Reed, who kindly put me in touch with a wide range of experts. I’m grateful to Peggy Frankland, author of the very fine Women Pioneers of the Louisiana Environmental Movement, about early kitchen-sink environmental activists, and who, along with Mike Tritico, kindly read an early draft of the manuscript. Thanks to Paul Ringo in Singer, Louisiana, for sharing his knowledge of the industrial pollution of Louisiana’s rivers, especially the Sabine River. Thanks to Jimmy and Marilyn Cox, who shared their close knowledge of Louisiana state politics and their generous hospitality. Jimmy also helped me research “man camps.” Thanks to Dan Schaad and Sherry Jones Miller of Aunt Ruby’s Bed and Breakfast, where I stayed in Lake Charles, another home away from home. In Baton Rouge, a big thanks to Willie Fontenot, a former Louisiana assistant district attorney who, with his wife Mary, kindly hosted my son and me, and proved an extraordinary guide through Louisiana’s environmental history.
I dedicate this book to six inspiring environmentalists: Willie Fontenot, Wilma Subra, Marylee Orr, Mike Tritico, Clara Baudoin, and General Russel Honoré. Thank you for all you do.
Through the images and text of their astonishing book Petrochemical America, Richard Misrach and Kate Orff opened my eyes—a solemnly received gift. An image from that book appears on the cover of this book.
Special thanks to Ron and Linda Alfieri. Ron made a creative and generous offer—I should watch a program he chose (Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly) and he would watch one I chose (MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow), and we would each take notes and later compare impressions. We did, and along the way we became good friends. Thanks also to Mari Harris Alfieri.
Other Louisianans of many political stripes greatly deepened my understanding of the right, including Wendy Aguilar, Michele Armstrong, William Baggett, John Barry, the late David Conner, Eric Cormier, Laura Cox, Janice and Bob Crador, Debra Gillory, Michael Hall, former U.S. congressman from Louisiana “Buddy” Leach, Daniel Lévesque, Father Henry Manusco, Reverend Keith Matthews, Robert McCall, Ann Polak, Deborah Ramirez, Stacey Ryan, Rachael and Eddie Windham, Carolyn Woosley, and Beth Zilbert.
Back in Berkeley, I had the help of two highly gifted research assistants. In the project’s first year, Sarah Garrett scoured the literature—in sociology, psychology, political science, and history—that bore on political views. Later, Rebecca Elliott honed in on the history of industry and its impact on the environment. Both could zoom around datasets drawn from scientific and governmental sources as if on magic skates. Rebecca, now a professor at at the London School of Economics, conducted the painstaking research behind Appendixes B and C and performed a highly complex analysis interrelating data from a national survey (the National Opinion Research Center’s General Social Survey) with information on risk of exposure to hazardous waste (from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators). The more at risk a person is to exposure to hazardous waste, nationwide, we discovered, the less likely a person was to be worried about it, and the more likely to be a conservative Republican—part of the Great Paradox at the center of this book. Thanks also to Bonnie Kwan, who heroically transcribed over four thousand pages of interviews, proofread much of the manuscript, and cheered me along.
I’m also very grateful for the early editorial help of the highly gifted Connie Hale, who set a high standard and greatly helped me shape the narrative. Many thanks to my draft-reading friends, to Barbara Ehrenreich, who, ever encouraging, shook me back to “my Berkeley self,” and to Ann Swidler, who pushed me in the opposite direction. I’ve learned immensely from them both. Thanks also to Allison Pugh, dear friend and editor extraordinaire, who has a great gift for putting her finger on exactly the right hidden point. Thanks to Mike and Flo Hout for a very helpful read and to Mike for expertly shepherding Rebecca and me through the General Social Survey analysis mentioned above, and a great thanks to Troy Duster and Larry Rosenthal for help at every stage of this project. Many thanks to Harriet Barlow, whose deep concern about this political moment is an inspiration to many, and to Deirdre English for her continuing support and “wow” insights, and to Wayne Herkness, who advised me on details of the BP oil spill. Thanks to Chuck Collins for help understanding which public policies help big business and which help small businesses, and to Ruth Collier and Elizabeth Farnsworth for helpful conversation. I’m grateful to Gustav Wickstrom for his helpful critical feedback on an early prospectus and to Larry Rosenthal and Martin Paley for comments on an early draft. Huge thanks to Joan Cole, who remained an angel of encouragement throughout. When I most feared becoming a workaholic drudge to all my friends, Joan warmly you-hooed inside the emotional tunnel one digs in completing such projects with her loving, near daily, “So how’s it going?”
My deepest gratitude goes to my longtime literary agent, Georges Borchardt, for his enormous support, his largeness of vision, and his unfailing sense of humor. Thanks also to two fantastic editors at The New Press, Ellen Adler and Jed Bickman, for wise and incisive edits. My special gratitude to Ellen for her equanimity under pressure and to Jed for sidebar theory chats; it was pure pleasure working with them both. And to Emily Albarillo for her good-humored and superb oversight of the production of the book.
More than I can say, I’m grateful for my family. My son David joined me at an environmental rally on the steps of the Louisiana state house in Baton Rouge, first spotted Mike Schaff (whom I profile in this book) at the podium, scoured a draft of the book, and offered great encouragement. Many thanks to my son Gabriel for wise meditations on politics and the human spirit, and to my nephew Ben Russell, who joined me on visits to Port Arthur, Texas, and Longville, Singer, and Lake Charles, Louisiana, and spent a day with me visiting a man living in a trailer without electricity or running water on land zoned “heavy industrial” for new development by Sasol. Many thanks to my daughter-in-law Cynthia Li, herself a gifted writer, who read a draft of the book and helped me see the text through her wondrously insightful eyes.
Finally, Adam. He twice set up at Aunt Ruby’s, his own manuscript in tow. He visited with some of my new friends, attended church, explored bookstores, and caught beads thrown from a Lake Charles Mardi Gras float. He also red-penned multiple drafts, cooked, listened, wondered, lightened, encouraged, held, and shared with me the experience of writing this book as he has shared much else in the fifty years of our marriage. He is the light of my life and I so thank him for being that.