In an increasingly polarized country where the political left and the political right seem to have divergent realities, the author sets out to understand not only conservative ideology but what she terms the “deep story,” meaning the way that conservatives feel about life in the contemporary United States. As a sociologist, she is trained in objectivity, but an inquiry into politics is new territory. She does feel that, as the child of a foreign service officer, she is adept at making new friends and at empathizing with people whose life experiences are different from her own. A lifelong liberal, she is confident that she can bridge the political divide in this project.

The author drives through rural Louisiana along the side of the old Armelise plantation, with Mike Schaff, a man whose family has lived in this area for generations. He points out the site of various family landmarks and the now-vanished town of Banderville, a small community in which Black and white residents lived harmoniously. Mike identifies himself as a Tea Party Republican, and he feels that government should stay out of business in spite of the fact that a largely unregulated drilling company caused a sinkhole that swallowed up a large tract of his property.