Abstract:
The 2016 Republican Party platform is unabashed in its rejection
of environmental principles and its embrace of extractive labor. Its
‘Natural Resources’ section reads: ‘[w]e are the party of America's
growers, producers, farmers, ranchers, foresters, miners, commercial
fishermen, and all those who bring from the earth the crops, minerals,
energy, and the bounties of our seas.’ What is interesting about this
statement is its selective view of productive labor. Not all who bring
from the earth are equally valued within the American conservative
worldview. What accounts for the outsized role of white male workers
in the discourses of American conservatives?
