Thing is that sort of thing it’s globally universal. Once one heads out to the rural areas of anywhere they are usually dominated by generations people who have been there for……generations. Imagine that!
And the people who inhabit those areas are usually very similar. Of ethnicity, background and their work and of reasons for being. I know them too. They are in-laws of mine from Idaho. And also farmer relatives of mine from Saskatchewan. They only know their own little world and are reluctant to embrace anything outside of it. I cannot say I “blame†them for anything… it’s just the world that they know and the world that they have always and only known.
I have a very similar experience. And I get it. They want to be left alone. But, it's when they want to impose their idiosyncrasies upon others that it becomes a problem. It works both ways, frankly. The needs/expectations of city dwellers and rural denizens are quite different. That dichotomy goes back to the country's founding and the conflict between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. It was carried forward by the parties they founded - Federalists and Anti-Federalists that morphed into Republicans and Democrats of today.
The balance was really skewed permanently when the
Reapportionment Act of 1929 was enacted, ensuring that rural America would always be overrepresented. Originally it was only the Senate and Electoral College that were so skewed. Now all branches of government represent that imbalance. It's exacerbated by gerrymandering, and emphasized by hyperpartisanship. I'm not sure it can ever be corrected - or at least not until we recognize that reality.
