Because some folk (including myself) like to comfort themselves thinking that the divide in America is only skin deep, and the media is focusing on the culture divide in a sensationalistic effort to grab viewers. That really we are still one nation, under alleged god, indivisible…blah blah blah.
Oh well. It was a good thought.
No, I wouldn’t say racism and homophobia and misogyny are secondary.
I realize your post was made half in jest but:
~New PRRI Report Reveals Nearly One in Five Americans and One in Four Republicans Still Believe in QAnon Conspiracy Theories. And growing. Even if that’s an overstatement that’s waaay too many.
~The right-wing, Trump Won, followers stormed the Capitol in an attempt to overthrow the election (and by extension, the government).
~A previous president is on trial for racketeering, his followers and most all of the right still believe in him and want him to be re-elected. This scandal would have ruined any past politician.
All this and much more and the OP finds a disparity between rural farming, pub goer values and more cosmopolitan folks values, “chilling”?
Sorry, I don’t get it.
I’ve run across this fear in several western states–Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho–that are getting an influx of people from outside (usually California). I once listened to a guy in Saratoga WY complain bitterly about the “outsiders” who were moving in, and how it would soon be as liberal as the front range in Colorado.
Even Texas has some people moving from blue states, and there is worry that they will “infect” the area, bringing their “unamerican” values with them.
This is why opposition to contraception is such a big plank issue for conservatives. The libs have smaller families, or no children at all, and of course, teh gays wont be having kids. They know they can out-reproduce the Democrats - it’s the only way!
Doesn’t that work against them then? Outlawing contraception and homosexuality is only going to increase the left’s population.
I agree with this in most part. I’ve lived in several small Coloradan tourist towns. And they HATE the tourists. They happily take the money, and are in fact dependent upon it, but from the POV of the people who live in those towns, all the tourists are loud, town clogging, trash dropping drunks who are only tolerated because it’s 90% of the economy. And that’s regardless of their politics - since these towns can lean either way.
Truly tiny towns (a few hundred or less) though, lean more into the second part of @solost’s section -
But back to smaller (not tiny) towns that aren’t tourist dependent, I think it’s more along the lines of @Great_Antibob:
My mother (a University educated, Northeastern Jew) ended up moving to Plainview TX with my Texan stepfather. Plainview is a shitty hellhole of rural TX panhandle Christian Conservatism, and that’s putting it generously. Mom largely kept quiet about everything, and got tolerated. Step-dad was fine, although since he was considerably more cosmopolitan, he was thought of as being a bit standoffish, especially as he is totally secular. My half brother went to public schools there, but got a lot of broadening from my mother, myself and my younger brother, who were high school and college students during his elementary years (he’s 14 years younger than I).
He could not WAIT until college and could get out of there - and he reported always being held at arms length despite being a kicker for the high school football team (the most popular group in town) because he was “too smart for his own good” IE not really one of them.
They don’t care. They’re pleasing god. That’s all that matters.
Yes, the anti-intellectualism in these places is truly jaw-dropping. “We’re uneducated and proud” is their motto. And they don’t like or trust people who are educated. That’s what’s scary to me. I grew up with this anti-intellectualism in my own family and congregation, and it is truly alarming to see it becoming so rampant.
Everyone knows the kicker isn’t a real football player.
:flees:
Eh, he’d have agreed. He came into it from soccer because it was a sport we all played together - I was on teams through Junior High, and my younger brother (2 years) did it through college and even coached. He got semi-drafted for football because Plainview (at least at the time) didn’t have any soccer teams at the high school level, he had the skills, and wanted the extra non-academic padding for his college applications. He was good enough (as a football kicker) to get offered a scholarship or two, but not to any schools he wanted to go to.
He’s graduated from UT Austin years ago and I’m damn proud of the man he is and always has been.
Am I the only one who noticed that the bartender didn’t object to any specific values? Apparently, to him, anyone having any values, at all, was unacceptable.
I recall an episode from the TV show Top Gear from a few years ago where they drive through Alabama. They painted slogans on the sides of their cars intended to make the locals unhappy ("Nascar sucks, “Manlov is ok,” etc.).
In Chicago people would just laugh or shake their heads a little. In Alabama, they literally got attacked. I get they were provoking the locals but still…
FYI: There’s a LOT more to that story. He was writing AND PUBLISHING violent sexual fanfiction about women and children in town, and using their real names, and there’s evidence that he was doing some inappropriate things with security footage at a grocery store he co-owned.
He was a sicko.
Wow.
A couple and their 2-year-old son moved to a small town. The boy grew up there and lived out the rest of his 90-odd years in that small town. When he died, they put on his tombstone, “He was almost one of us.”
Knute Rife, Goldendale WA (May/Jun 96 Utne Reader letters)
Clearly his own values don’t have to be elucidated as they are simply a reflection of the natural order, i.e. the way God made the world. So, if you have to define your ‘values’ in the first place, you’re clearly unnatural and going against God
Note: that’s not the way I personally think but growing up around similar people does give one a look into the perspective
I looked at that town on google maps - surprisingly, three motels (none of which are national chains), one bar, one bar, one cafe, one gas station, a post office, & a tour agency. I could run every single street in town, but then I’m not sure what I’d do for the second mile. Not surprised at all that they’re wary of outsiders.
You forgot gyms in about 6 weeks; damn resolutioners!
Back when I worked at the museum, I had some visitors from Wisconsin come in and they asked me a few questions about the building and what we had on display. The lady asked me, “Arkansas isn’t know for being very progressive, is it?” while looking down at at her nose at me. I kept my answer diplomatic but I really wanted to tell her to #%$! off with that.
I had a busload of people from New Jersey stop by and they were nice. I told them I visited New Jersey the previous year and told them how much I enjoyed the whole trip. One of them joked that he hadn’t heard anyone say anything nice about visiting NJ before.
I don’t doubt the divide, but it is no new and is not unique to America. More than anything else it is rural vs city.
About 15 years ago we had a low key bachelor party weekend out in rural Alberta. An old friend and I drove out together from Calgary. We stopped for gas and sundries at some little whistle stop. It had a few tables and one of the locals called out “don’t you all come back now” as we left. Nasty, unfriendly, and a contrived delivery. Albertans normally don’t sound like the characters in HeeHaw or whatever rural American fantasy was being channelled.
Its insular and pathetic, but it was long before MAGA or Trump. I have had lots of friendly rural experiences in both Canada and the US and some pretty negative experiences too. I do not doubt that things are made worse now by current social echo chambers, but this is an old, old behavior.