No Mormon has every proselytized me except at my front door on early weekend mornings. Unlike Jehovah’s Witnesses who will proselytize me at any time and on any excuse. Utah has nice people and a lot of beauty.
I don’t know if it was politics or just invasive nosiness, but attitudes were a small factor in our decision not to settle in Seattle.
I’ve posted about this before, but there was a sort of institutional hostility toward newcomers when we lived there. From the KBO (Keep the Bastards Out) organization run by a local columnist to the “Welcome to Seattle, now go home” bumper stickers we got the not-welcome vibe from a variety of directions. Of course, there are nice people everywhere and we made friends quickly, but the constant “go home” drumbeat* got old.
Being conservative, we obviously disagreed with most of their politics, but the entitled busybody nature of the local lefties was astonishing to me. I drove (as always) a full-sized pickup and it seemed every granola-head in the county felt their duty was to lecture me about it. One lady got out of her car and scolded me about the amount of gas it held (it had multiple tanks, and she’d gotten impatient waiting for me to take on fuel). Another gentleman scolded me because the big tires apparently threw a lot of spray and he wanted me to install mud-flaps (I told him if he didn’t like it. don’t follow so close). I like to ride my mountain bikes, and probably half my trail rides involved some erstwhile hippie reprimanding me about wearing a helmet. Why this was any of their business eludes me. Didn’t mean to go on about it, but Seattle is the only place I’ve lived that felt like I was at summer camp (with my parents as counselors).
We ended up with a few choices about where to settle, and tried Arizona for a few years. We liked it but ended up in Texas mainly for economic reasons, but it helps that it aligns more closely with our beliefs on gun control, crime, and politics in general.
I’m surprised by the upthread answer about driving around Utah due to religion. I’m an atheist, so Mormons aren’t something I seek out. But I’ve vacationed there frequently and never been bothered (although some places it’s difficult to get a drink on Sundays).
*Funny anecdote: I got annoyed once and put a sign in the back of my pickup (still had TX plates) that said: “We’re just visitin’, but if anyone messes with this truck, We’ll MOVE here.” I left it in a lot near Pike Place market and came back to find two guys guarding it. They were clownishly patrolling back and forth in front of it, and we had a good laugh with them. They claimed it was the best crime-prevention move they’d seen. 
I can barely stand the employee break room when the big boss is there. She keeps bringing up political stuff and it makes me uncomfortable. We’ll be talking about something completely innocent, like how ridiculously big a new fast food burger is, and she’ll jump in with something like “Well it won’t be around long because Michelle is gonna outlaw it all and take it away, AMIRITE???” And she’ll look around the room for appropriate reactions and nods. Can’t stand it. I don’t want to agree with her, don’t want to confront or challenge her, so I try my best to ignore it all. Unfortunately, I come across as rude when ignoring the boss. I take early 20-min lunches now to minimize exposure.
Mostly I keep my head down; at worst I’ve defriended a couple of people on Facebook and left some messageboards. Never physically left a place just because of politics, although the current American political climate is providing an excellent incentive not to return there anytime soon.
pullin, I’m moderately lefty but the only thing I’d challenge you on is the mudflaps thing. If you’re really kicking up enough spray to affect other drivers, it’s no longer just your business and could be potentially dangerous. But bike helmets and big gas tanks - hey, it’s your head and your money.
When stateside, I can ignore the background chatter long enough to have a meal if at a restaurant, or just use my headphones and read if I am in an airport. Fortunately the people here - expats and nationals - do not get worked up about things like guns, religion, and politics in the same manner as is done in the US. Maybe it is due to the lack of radio talk shows. 
As a tourist, most definitely not!
I see it as my opportunity to study them like zoo animals. I often wonder how people that hold opinions I deeply disagree with have arrived at this way of thinking, and I would treat it as an anthropological fact-finding mission.
I also enjoy planting seeds of doubt in their minds.
Don’t know if this is considered a “place” that one leaves, but I have stopped listening to any AM radio in my car. In the Detroit area, it’s an abysmal stew of right-wing spew, preachers of the fire and brimstone bible and about 30 sports stations, all nattering on about the same topics. Move on. Nothing to listen to here.
Are websites on-topic? I stopped going to “Bone the Fish” (the sucessor to “Jump the Shark”) because almost any politically-themed page was slanted almost insanely to the right-Global Warming for example didn’t even have an option for “Never Boned”…
Doesn’t bother me much anymore.
As I tell my conservative relatives…We WON, You LOST. Your opinions are not relevant anymore.
Sometimes I wonder how a hard core conservative would fare in my very Blue neighborhood. I have a fond election day memory from this year. There was a large group of adults with a few small children walking towards the polling place, one of the children was curious about the process and was asking her Mom questions.
Then she pulled away and started skipping down the street, chanting “Everyone’s voting for Obama, Everyone’s voting for Obama”.
Tangent: I good friend of mine (conservative) tells his kids “Obama wants to take our money”. So I tell my kids “the Republicans want to destroy America”. All good natured, mind you, but since my kids are older, I have to remind them not to discuss politics or religion amongst their friends or classmates, as it would eventually get back to me somehow.
I pretty much stopped hanging out on Facebook because of all the political garbage being posted. No just conservative vs. liberal, but outright stupidity like anti-vax and birtherism. I tried engaging a few times and felt like I’d stuck my hand in a woodchipper. I’ve been happier since.
I was visiting Philadelphia and I wanted to have an authentic Philly Cheese Steak.
For those of you who don’t know, there are two restaurants, Pat’s and Geno’s, that are next door to each other. They are huge rivals and each claims that they sell the real/authentic/original/best Philly Cheese Steak sandwich.
I’m an out-of-towner so I have no dog in this fight. I didn’t really care which of them I ate at. As it happened I found a parking place that was closer to Geno’s so I went there. But as I got up to the counter I saw a sign that said “This is America. We only take orders in English.”
As it happens, I was planning on ordering in English. But I left Geno’s and went over to Pat’s. Their signs only requested that you figure out what you’re going to order before you get to the counter so you don’t hold up the line.
Considering that Bush’s foreign policy legacy and authoritarianism are alive and well in the Obama administration, I don’t think that this is “us vs. them” as much as you think. You voted for the puppet on the left, but the same corporations are pulling the strings for both puppets.
When I first moved to Northern Virginia in the 1980s I went to some singles events. Yes, to meet women. As always in this area, politics raised its ugly head and I found myself, a pretty liberal person I think, cast as the most uptight, conservative person in the room. Apparently a lot of woo-woo, ultra-liberal, government conspiracy type stuff was accepted as unquestionable by the groups so I had to walk out of a couple of those. “Cmon man! That’s what Reagan and nuclear energy conspiracy wants you to think. Open your eyes man!” Maybe I didn’t choose my dating groups very well.
Being a contrarian by nature, I’ll break up the liberal theme here with another angle:
I am a vegetarian and of course there is no shortage of young hipster-liberal types at most vegetarian-friendly restaurants. It’s not that unusual that I will see someone at places like this spouting off ideas that I think are naive or misguided.
My preference is to keep that sort of thing apolitical, but I don’t really let it bother me. I think of it as being part of “the experience”. The world would actually be pretty boring if everyone agreed all the time. If someone is purposely trying to be offensive to those who have different views then I might steer clear of them, but most of us are just trying to make sense of the world as best as we can.
You misspelled the name of the place where I live now. It’s among the United States’ most iconic liberal/hippie towns; right up there with Berkeley and Ann Arbor. The county had the highest percentage of votes in the country for Jill Stein in the last presidential election. I’m quite liberal, yet I often feel like a frothing dittohead compared to more established locals.
I never knew who Amy Goodman was until I moved here. Among locals, she’s considered as authoritative as my parents would have considered Walter Cronkite. A very large percentage of local online dating profiles will mention social justice and “Mother Earth”, and be filled with aspirations of homestead/permaculture living. The Republican Party is, for all practical purposes, non-existent. Sketches on Portlandia aren’t that far off from reality.
These drawings from the weekly alternative newspaper offer some insight.
Best way to anger a local: Imgur: The magic of the Internet
Best way to make a local happy: Imgur: The magic of the Internet
I wonder how conservative visitors feel when they pass through or visit the place. Do they see the hundreds of Volvos on the road in the same light as the Stuff White People Like crowd see huge pickup trucks with fish and deer decals in the back windows? Do they see the various co-ops and vegetarian restaurants in the same way liberals see gun stores and Chick-fil-A? Do they look down on the ubiquitous Earth Mother ladies with long gray hair like liberals might scoff at trucker-looking men wearing camo or “THESE COLORS DON’T RUN!” t-shirts? Do they make fun of the counselor-style accents many speak with?
News flash: Just because a state showed up Solid Red or Solid Blue on election night does not mean that every part of the state is that color.
I live in Texas. Our state senator was re-elected despite being dead–because his opponent was a Republican.
It was known there would be an election to fill the spot. The two leading candidates are chicanas; each of their TV ads states how much they want to kick Ricky Perry in the balls. Well, they say it more politely–but the message is clear…
In my town:
One commercial conservative talk station.
Two NPR stations (from larger cities, but with tweaks for the local market, local sponsors, etc).
One commercial liberal talk station.
One non-profit far left radio station.
I am usually the one driving people away.
In a previous job, there were some religious nuts. Occasionally, they’d ask me about what I believe. My atheism was apparently so shocking that they couldn’t believe someone just believed in nothing, so they engaged me in talking about it. Well, I have no filters, so I told him what I thought of their evil god. Then I’d be the one to engage them on things, to the point where they avoided me. Things worked out better that way
I don’t care about the politics of a person unless they talk about nothing else. Then it gets tiring.