Resentment Divides Us

Some thoughts after reading Katherine Cramer’s book about my home state of Wisconsin

I recently read the book The Politics of Resentment for our Newmark J-School at CUNY teaching book club; it was also recommended to me by some folks at the MIT Media Lab, who said the book was part of the inspiration for the Listening Box project. This post summarizes a few key points I think might be interesting and relevant for journalists.

University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Katherine Cramer traversed the state from 2007 to 2012 to listen to conversations among people about politics and how they felt about the health of their communities. Instead of doing interviews or convening focus groups or doing surveys, she went to places where people were already meeting regularly to chat or play dice with each other at places like diners and gas stations.

Her method is useful for engaged journalists to think about

Cramer’s listening-driven approach to her research is especially of interest to those of us in social journalism. Although we operate on tighter deadlines than academics, we believe that journalists need to listen before reporting to better understand communities’ needs and diverse perspectives.

Advantages and disadvantages: Cramer’s method captures the way people think and talk in an authentic context, because, as she notes, we make sense of what we believe about politics in part through our social interactions in familiar places where we feel comfortable. But at the same time, as she acknowledges, one limitation is that groups of people that tend be meeting up organically to talk without any researcher intervention are often older and probably a little bit different than the population as a whole.

Some useful tips for social/engaged journalists from the book:

1. “I learned that, rather than obscure who I am, I had to be a human being in order to be welcomed into their conversations.” (32)

2. Be attentive to how people react to your identity; this is a type of data.

3. Cramer started with general questions e.g. what are the some of the big concerns around here these days? From the snippets of transcripts she provides, you can tell she was very conscientious about continually encouraging people to speak their mind, even if it meant they might say something insulting to her, and actively listening.

4. “In general, I find that if you sincerely convey to people that you are interested in what they think and are there to listen, not to preach or lecture, they have a lot to say.” (39)

5. Cramer talks about how she tries to convey she’s really listening — not crossing her arms, making eye contact, using attentive body language, trying not to nod or smile too much in a way that conveys her own biases, but rather a slow nod to convey “I am with you. Please say more.” (41).

Cramer’s two biggest conclusions:

• There is a significant rural vs. urban divide that is very salient to rural people’s identities and how they think about politics.
• Resentment is the primary driver of people’s political views and perceptions. There is a firmly held belief that other people, particularly city dwellers and public employees, are getting more than their fair share of collective resources, despite not working very hard, and this shapes how people view government and candidates for office.

“In a politics of resentment, we treat differences in our political points of view as fundamental differences in who we are as human beings.” (211)

“Rural consciousness”

“Rural consciousness” or rural identity is, according to Cramer, a perception that rural people have different values, and, in particular, a better work ethic than relatively wealthy urbanites. Some of this perception arises because rural people are more likely to be doing manual labor— and certainly it is often physically grueling in a way those of us who are mostly desk-bound can probably only partially appreciate. It’s also notable that most of the people from cities that rural people encounter, particularly in Wisconsin where many suburban and Chicago residents make their way north in the summers, are relatively wealthy people on vacation. This is contrasted by a simultaneous perception that cities are dangerous, chaotic and overwhelming.

Pretty obvious that this is rooted in racism, right?

Yes. Given that “urban” is often code for “non-white,” this is clearly the biggest factor in how these negative perceptions of people in cities arise. Cramer argues, though, that there is a complex brew here in which racism becomes intertwined with other attitudes in ways that further perpetuate racist beliefs. In Wisconsin’s rural areas, race often isn’t quite as salient when it comes to politics because there is so little racial diversity. Cramer heard very few overtly racist comments, and when she did, they were about Native Americans, who represent the largest minority group in these areas. But just because racism isn’t openly expressed obviously doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist; it’s just that it can spread and perpetuate itself in more subtle ways. I think Cramer may have underplayed racism a little bit in the book, but I also think that understanding how it intersects with other beliefs about class resentment is illuminating.

Are rural areas *really* getting less than their fair share of tax dollars?

Nope. That said, she does point out that the perceptions aren’t completely divorced from reality, in the sense that many rural areas are experiencing high levels of poverty and unemployment, so people don’t perceive that assistance they are getting is in any way “enough,” or changing their lives in a concrete way.

Hatred for public employees

I was particularly interested in this, as someone who is a a professor at a public school, was educated almost entirely by public schools, and was raised by two public school teachers. According to Cramer, public employees in general are seen as: a)lazy, b)guilty by association as part of a government people think is too big c)getting too many benefits and fat salaries paid for at the public’s expense d)inefficient bureaucrats and e)members of greedy unions.

Keep in mind that in rural areas public employees may be the best paid people in a given town. In that context, I guess this makes some sense, but personally I still struggle to understand the roots of these perceptions about the people who teach our kids (rural folks aren’t big fans of the Department of Natural Resources, either).

Economic anxiety is real, but…

It is seen through the lens of identity and emotion. It’s not that they’ve become distracted by social or cultural issues, it’s that economics itself is seen through the lens of social and cultural issues.

Elites/Republican politicians activate and capitalize on resentment. They tap into people’s existing attitudes and beliefs and fire them up even more. They encourage people to focus on the undeserving that are getting more than their fair share, instead of on the wealthy who are the primary beneficiaries of Republican policies. And yes, this obviously offers an interesting window into Trump’s rise.

The media. Cramer argues it’s not the media that is firing up this resentment, based on a content analysis of newspapers in WI. But I think Fox News and its ilk play a huge role in fueling and shaping this resentment narrative in ways that easily bleed from the national to the local. She found that newspapers essentially ignore rural perspectives entirely, and argues that’s one reason people don’t really trust them.

Support for small government is not about principles, it’s about identity, Cramer writes. This is why people vote against their own interests, choosing Republican candidates even when they are among the most likely to need gov’t services. They do not really believe they will benefit from programs like universal health care — “other people” will, while they keep footing the bill through their taxes. Politicians like Trump and Tea Party fuel this perception by tapping “into our deepest and most salient social divides: race, class, culture, place.” (220)

I agree with Cramer that it’s pretty arrogant to argue that rural conservatives have been entirely fooled by politicians, and that a lot of their views are rooted in their own experience. But I think she downplays a lot of ignorance, too — a larger failure of our education system to foster critical thinking and exposure to different ways of seeing the world.

Overall, this is deeply depressing

I know all we need right now is more bad news, but clearly this analysis offers us a number of insights into what became the presidential election of 2016.

“Sometimes the resentment about the economic inequality between the major cities and small communities was so strong that I wondered if I should end the conversation and get out.” (83)

But I can think of few things more toxic than a public life that is fueled by resentment. Even if we were to just stipulate that the resentment was well-deserved for the sake of argument — living with such a dark view of our fellow humans is perhaps what leaves so many of us so angry, driving the recent surges in things like suicide and opioid abuse.

I felt the same way as Cramer:

“I grew up in Wisconsin and have always taken pride in “Wisconsin nice” — a way of being in which people are kind to each other, sometimes to a fault. But the Wisconsin I know now is something different, something divided.” (207)