Book: Strangers in their own land

A sociologist from UC Berkeley decided she wanted to understand the people who watch Fox news, reject climate change, hate the government, teach creationism, pray for the end of legal abortion, idealize the wealthy, & embrace industry in spite of how much industry abuses them and their homeland. She spent 5 years in Louisiana which I learned is the Honduras of the USA. The people are unusually unhealthy, they die younger than other Americans, their state is incredibly polluted, and their public systems a shambles.

Turns out these are nice, well-meaning people even if almost everything they believe was invented by Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. They don't care about facts. They have a deep story that dates back to the civil war. In fact, one memorable passage features a man who says he doesn't think the US should allow Syrian refugees in because during the civil war, the southerners who were pummeled by the north didn't flee. They died. That's what the Syrians should do. They shouldn't abandon their country, they should die fighting.

What can I say to these people? They sincerely wish to turn the US into a third-world theocracy. It's frightening. I wish they could go to Honduras. They'd love it. We could take the Hondurans who are literally dying to get here and all of these conservatives can go to Honduras, pay no taxes and enjoy no infrastructure or government. Everybody wins!