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Seems insightful to me. To the MAGA crowd it would almost certainly be viewed as condescending.

I come from a small, rural town in Wisconsin—the kind of place where the high school mascot is sacred, the churches outnumber the stoplights, and the local diner still offers political commentary with your scrambled eggs, all filtered through a Reagan-era lens of rugged individualism and bootstrap theology. It’s a town that raised me, yes—but also one I outgrew, not out of arrogance, but out of an insatiable curiosity that was simply not compatible with fences and familiar last names.

My childhood was an oddity in that place. While most of my peers stayed anchored in the gravitational pull of local norms and traditions, my parents handed me a passport and pointed outward. Road trips across the US turned into train rides through Eastern Europe. I was the kid who collected fossils and insects instead of baseball cards, who could name capitals but not quarterbacks. Later, I moved abroad. I pursued higher education. I immersed myself in history, science, philosophy, and the relentless pursuit of knowledge and understanding, trying to understand not just the world, but why people move through it the way they do.

And then, like some tragic protagonist in a novel about the perils of nostalgia, I came back.

If distance grants perspective, then returning to the town of my youth was less like coming home and more like stepping into a diorama. The streets hadn’t changed, but I had. What once seemed wholesome now felt performative. The patriotism wasn’t pride—it was ritual. The friendliness wasn’t openness—it was surveillance. And beneath it all ran a silent, suffocating current of fear: fear of change, fear of the other, fear of being left behind.

This divide isn’t just geographical. It’s evolutionary.

For 95% of our species’ existence, we lived in small, kin-based bands where survival was contingent on cohesion, predictability, and suspicion of outsiders. Tribalism wasn’t a flaw—it was a feature. It kept us alive. To be skeptical of the unfamiliar, to prioritize the known over the unknown, was adaptive. But we don’t live on the savannah anymore. The threats we face are no longer predators or rival clans, but climate collapse, income inequality, and information warfare. Still, the reptilian brain lingers. And it does not care about nuance. It cares about belonging.

Rural America, in many ways, remains a living museum of this tribal wiring. In places where diversity is minimal and ideas circulate slowly, identity calcifies. Community becomes echo chamber. It’s not that people don’t think critically—it’s that critical thinking is punished. Conformity is rewarded. Outsiders—literal or ideological—are threats to the fragile cohesion of a community whose worldview has not been tested by difference but merely reinforced by repetition.

This is the root of the urban-rural divide—not intelligence, not morality, but exposure. In cities, survival demands adaptation: to new cultures, new technologies, new ways of seeing. In rural communities, survival demands continuity. And so when the firehose of modernity blasts through cable news and social media, it’s not processed as information—it’s processed as attack.
And the right wing has weaponized this brilliantly.

They’ve learned that fear is easier to manufacture than hope, and far more profitable. That a brain wired for tribal survival will always choose the strong lie over the complicated truth. That it’s easier to sell paranoia than policy. In my town, like so many others, they claim to be patriots who love their country, but they’ll vote for the man who promises to burn it down. They don’t believe in climate change, but their crops are drowning and their wells are poisoned. They don’t want to be ruled, but they’re desperate to be led—by someone who speaks in absolutes, who confirms their suspicions, who reflects their anger back to them like a funhouse mirror.

And this is the part that stings the most: these are not all bad people. They are people trapped in a feedback loop that exploits the very instincts evolution gave them to survive. They have been trained to confuse subjugation with strength, cruelty with conviction. To them, surrendering their rights to a strongman is not cowardice—it is tribal loyalty. It is faith.

So when I walk those old streets of my youth now, it feels less like homecoming and more like fieldwork. I see not just neighbors but a case study in inherited fear. A once-hopeful people turned against themselves by a machine that knows them better than they know themselves. A culture that clings to its myths not out of ignorance, but out of necessity—because without them, the whole house of cards collapses.

And the tragedy is this: the world they’re fighting to preserve no longer exists. The 1950s never really happened—not the way they remember them. What they mourn is not the loss of a country, but the loss of an illusion. And in their desperation to reclaim it, they have become foot soldiers in a war against their own future.

But still, I hope. Because if evolution has taught us anything, it’s that adaptation is possible. That fear does not have to rule us. That our tribal instincts, while ancient, are not immutable. That exposure, education, and empathy—slow, hard, and human—can expand the circle of who we call us.

I don’t know if my hometown will ever change. But I know I have. I know that what we choose to do with our understanding—how we wield it, how we share it, how we live it—matters more now than ever.

Because history doesn’t just happen to us. We are it. In every conversation. Every vote. Every time we choose truth over comfort, connection over fear.

That’s the long arc. That’s the work. That’s the hope. Oliver Kornetzke

I'm not MAGA, but it is very condescending. You cannot pigeonhole people.
Look all you leftists, people voted for Trump not because he was nice or honest, or a moral upstanding guy. People voted for him because they thought he would fight for them, very much unlike Democrats, who only seem to want to advocate for the trans people and the Black people and the lawbreaking illegal immigrants. Get that through your head first before you can understand how the centrists and the right wingers think.
I understand that Trump is a liar and was only interested in making money off of his meme coins and access to power and all other means he can think of. And he sucks up to Putin. I'm just telling you why people voted for him, believe me or not. As a centrist, I don't believe there is anybody on the Democratic side who will ever ever fight for me.

People voted for him because they thought he would fight for them, very much unlike Democrats, who only seem to want to advocate for the trans people and the Black people and the lawbreaking illegal immigrants

Don't see myself ever becoming a homophobic racist bigot. Oh well.

I understand that Trump is a liar ...

Whaaa? He's also a felon, a rapist, a misogynist, who flaunts the laws right under your nose. Why shortchange his legacy?

A liar? Puhlease, complete the description or you're simply not credible.

I'm not MAGA, but it is very condescending. You cannot pigeonhole people.
Look all you leftists, people voted for Trump not because he was nice or honest, or a moral upstanding guy. People voted for him because they thought he would fight for them, very much unlike Democrats, who only seem to want to advocate for the trans people and the Black people and the lawbreaking illegal immigrants. Get that through your head first before you can understand how the centrists and the right wingers think.

This: "unlike Democrats, who only seem to want to advocate for the trans people and the Black people and the lawbreaking illegal immigrants." If what you think is that Dems only want to advocate for trans and blacks, it sounds like you are believing propaganda. Trans is a new wedge issue - and is used by the Repubs to - drive a wedge between us. It didn't help for the BLM folk to come up with the dumb slogan - defund the police - that hurt their effort and libs badly. I consider myself a centrist.

You don't sound like a centrist to me, but I realize you think you are. I'm used to not getting what I want, even though it may be part of the platform. I put healthcare before climate change for instance. I see AOC as a modern social democrat, and I think a blend of socialism and capitalism such as the Nordic states has proven to be the best and we should move in that direction. Fat chance of that and that seems to be due to the carefully crafted resentment you display. Dope and Jedi have the same resentment.

After looking at issues I always stand back, look at the state of the country, and ask myself if the country needs to move right or left, and the country always seems to need to move left.

As for small town folk? I've seen small town folk who have had rich lives, with love and friends and heartbreak, and they may have had one road trip when they were young. But small towns talk about everyone - and some people have to move to get away from that talk. Adios.

"people voted for Trump"

How is that working out for you ?
You bought into the " drain the swamp " BS, so you elected a kleptocrat wannabe dictator.

You probably hated "SLeep Joe" Biden, so you went ahead and elected Dementia Donnie.

You say Libs never do anything for you. Obama managed to get public health care thru
the system. It for sure is not perfect, but it for sure is better than what existed before that. And it helped a helluva lot of people. What has Trump done ?? Oh yeah, he has "concepts" of a health care plan.

I can go on and on about Trump mouthing platitudes about all he was going to do for the
working class, yet there are many, many examples of Trump screwing over the working class
in his business dealings. But you bought his BS.

You sound just like MAGA, even though you claim you're not.
You elected Trump, own it.

I believe that the reason Democrats have advocated for Black people and the Trans community is that they have been so relentlessly persecuted.

They are not only people, but Americans too and deserve to be treated equally. No one is advocating for "special rights".

I believe that the reason Democrats have advocated for Black people and the Trans community is that they have been so relentlessly persecuted.
They are not only people, but Americans too and deserve to be treated equally. No one is advocating for "special rights".

100%. Pushing back against hatred, persecution and ignorance is what good people do.
Pushing back against the conservative folks who brought us the KKK and slavery and Jim Crowe and the southern strategy and strict voter ID requirements, and the purging of voter rolls,
and lies about Haitian immigrants and nazi salutes and deporting sick children etc, etc, is what good people do.
Heck, Donald Trump was endorsed twice by former KKK leader David Duke and by the "Crusader" the official newspaper of the KKK.

Side note: 6 weeks ago our economy was the envy of the world, now we have alienated all our allies, indiscriminately fired vital hard working Americans
(including many Veterans) and cut important programs resulting in our economy and reputation being driven into the ground. And eggs prices are still high.

"I'm not MAGA, but it is very condescending. You cannot pigeonhole people.
Look all you leftists, people voted for Trump not because he was nice or honest, or a moral upstanding guy. People voted for him because they thought he would fight for them, very much unlike Democrats, who only seem to want to advocate for the trans people and the Black people and the lawbreaking illegal immigrants. Get that through your head first before you can understand how the centrists and the right wingers think."

That is a pathetic attempt to justify your ignorant vote.

You are a weak person and the country is being destroyed because of you. All you can do is build crappy strawmen to try and make yourself feel better about your failure.

Fuck off.

No one is advocating for "special rights".

That’s not what right wing propaganda says!

the lawbreaking illegal immigrants.

Such as yourself.

As a centrist, I don't believe there is anybody on the Democratic side who will ever ever fight for me.

What is it that you think Trump will "fight for you" better than the Democrats?

Preserve Social Security and Medicare benefits that we have been paying into all our lives? Nope.

Protect the environment, so we have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, less crap in our environs, more places where we can "get away from it all" (or at least a lot of it)? Nope.

Preserve the world order, so the US remains the clear number one world power? Nope.

Avoid nuclear war? Nope.

Preserve freedom of speech, the media, due process of law for everyone? Nope.

Preserve the checks and balances that have helped make our country great? Nope.

Put a value on human decency? Nope.

Transition to sustainable energy sources and practices so future generations will have a more inhabitable planet? Nope.

Not coddle up to corrupt dictators? Nope.

What is it you want him to fight for? (And think he will--I see him as only fighting for himself.)

Rural America, in many ways, remains a living museum of this tribal wiring. In places where diversity is minimal and ideas circulate slowly, identity calcifies. Community becomes echo chamber. It’s not that people don’t think critically—it’s that critical thinking is punished. Conformity is rewarded. Outsiders—literal or ideological—are threats to the fragile cohesion of a community whose worldview has not been tested by difference but merely reinforced by repetition.

Regardless of whether it's insightful or condescending, it's wrong. Or at least incomplete.

The author attributes the different social structures of small-town life vs. big-city life to fear or threat or lack of exposure, and suggests that the increased importance of conformity is due to those factors. But those aren't the only reasons. I suspect they're not even the most important reasons.

In small communities, people face enormous pressure to conform simply because of the community size. In larger communities, the very size of the community gives you both the ability to maintain some degree of anonymity and the ability to form subcommunities within the larger whole. This dramatically changes the risk-reward ratio for nonconformity. It is structural, not ideological.

In a small community, everyone knows you. They've probably known you from birth. They know your family, your background, your personal leanings - everything. Or if they don't, they can find out very very quickly and easily. All of the social and economic institutions are built around that massive amount of shared knowledge. When you apply for a job or interact with someone socially or try to join an institution, almost everything that was ever known about you comes into that situation with you. You can't escape it, you can't hide it, you can't conceal it.

Meanwhile, large urban areas allow for anonymity - indeed, it's somewhat inescapable. It's utterly impossible for people to know everyone in the community. So employment and economic and social institutions are structured around that fact. Employers and other institutions don't assume that they're going to already know people when they walk in the door, and so they have both policies (job interviews, for example) and rules (don't ask if they're married or have kids) around that fact which would be utterly pointless in a small town.

So if you decide to be nonconformist in a small town, there's a huge possible penalty to it. Everyone will know, and there's nowhere for you to go where they won't. Meanwhile, in a large city, the costs are vastly lower - you can have a personal life or ideology or culture that's different from the majority and carve out a life for yourself regardless. It's a large enough space that you can avoid being stigmatized, and you can find enough people like yourself to build a community of like-minded folks.

And of course, that brings us to the ironic part of this analysis. There are plenty of sub-communities in dense urban areas that have exactly the same degree of rigidly enforced conformity as any small town. Go into an ethnically or religiously homogenous community in New York, whether the Hasidim or Little Odessa or Chinatown or a host of other enclaves, and see how easy it is to depart from widely held - and enforced - community standards. Or even ideological subcommunities - I imagine that if you're waist-deep in a super-liberal neighborhood in Berkley, you might find it just as difficult to voice opposition to allowing trans girls on a women's sports team as it would be to voice the opposite opinion in a small deeply conservative town.

As a centrist, I don't believe there is anybody on the Democratic side who will ever ever fight for me.

That's because you wrongly believe that Democrats only fight for "the trans people and the Black people and the lawbreaking illegal immigrants" - ignoring all the other fights they engage in, like fights for clean air and clean water and better access to health care and fighting monopolies and promoting labor rights and reproductive freedom and a host of other things.

I mean, it is ironic that you simultaneously claim you cannot pigeonhole people, and then proceed to pigeonhole "all you leftists" as believing certain things. Perhaps if you also tried to understand the breadth and variety and political positions of all the people 'on the Democratic side' to the degree you think they should do that for centrists and right wingers, it might help you get a better handle on things.

Albaby-

Rather than quote your entire post, I’ll simply say “You nailed it”.

I’ve lived in small towns, big cities and rural areas and what you say is exactly true.

Regardless of whether it's insightful or condescending, it's wrong. Or at least incomplete.

Well, in reading both the OP's and your postings, I agree with both; I actually think you're saying much the same thing. Most of the "incomplete" things you bring up were things I interpreted the author to mean, either directly or implicitly.

Pete

Well, in reading both the OP's and your postings, I agree with both; I actually think you're saying much the same thing. Most of the "incomplete" things you bring up were things I interpreted the author to mean, either directly or implicitly.

I don't think we're saying the same thing - and I don't think he really meant that.

We're talking about two different things: being isolated and being insular. The author attributes small-town adherence to conformity as a consequence of being isolated: not being exposed to other cultures, people, or ways of thinking. I think it's more of a structural consequence of being a small community: even if the people in a small community are exposed to lots of people that think, act, or believe differently than they do, as long as they're members of a small insular community they will be under enormous pressure to conform to that community's norms.

What the author attributes to lack of exposure I believe is an inherent structural outcome of the size of the community. In a big city, you can reject majority norms without serious consequence. In a small town, you can become an outcast, and the opportunity costs to you are enormous. If you're in a small liberal town, with worldly and cosmopolitan values, the same applies - if everyone in your community is composting and recycling and using mass transit (all to fight climate change), you'll pay huge social capital costs if you buck the dominant norms.

In a big city, you can reject majority norms without serious consequence.

Hahahahaha.
I dare you to put a Trump yard sign on your front lawn up here in Seattle :)

Hahahahaha.
I dare you to put a Trump yard sign on your front lawn up here in Seattle :)

Even in Seattle…

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/fyi...

As a centrist, I don't believe there is anybody on the Democratic side who will ever ever fight for me.


Then what a flaming fool you are to have voted for Trump.

As a centrist, I don't believe there is anybody on the Democratic side who will ever ever fight for me.

Doctors say that childhood vaccines are safe and effective. But a Trump appointed, heroin-addled, nepo-baby with a brain worm says they are probably not.
For centrist voters, it can be hard to know who to believe.

I dare you to put a Trump yard sign on your front lawn up here in Seattle :)

Well, sure - but that misses the point I was making above. A big enough population allows you anonymity to be nonconforming, iconoclastic, or otherwise depart from the norms without it being well-known to all. Of course, if you deliberately choose to break that level of "flying below the radar" by, say, putting out a yard sign you will lose a lot of that benefit. Although as was pointed out, it's not like conservatives don't exist altogether in Seattle - they're just deeply in the minority. But for the most part, you can keep things like your political leanings largely hidden in a large city - at least, to a much larger degree than in a small town.

A big enough population allows you anonymity to be nonconforming, iconoclastic, or otherwise depart from the norms without it being well-known to all. Of course, if you deliberately choose to break that level of "flying below the radar" by, say, putting out a yard sign you will lose a lot of that benefit. Although as was pointed out, it's not like conservatives don't exist altogether in Seattle - they're just deeply in the minority. But for the most part, you can keep things like your political leanings largely hidden in a large city - at least, to a much larger degree than in a small town.

Except this is true in the reverse. Unless you went out and loudly told everyone in a small red town that you were an ardent Joe Biden supporter you'd also fly under the radar.

Anyone can be anonymous to a degree...what matters is the degree.

Except this is true in the reverse. Unless you went out and loudly told everyone in a small red town that you were an ardent Joe Biden supporter you'd also fly under the radar.

Perhaps, but it's far less likely - and you'd have to really work to keep people from finding out other, more demonstrative aspects of who you are that would go relatively unnoticed in a big city. And there's fewer places you can go to that don't care about those aspects, or even support them.

Perhaps, but it's far less likely - and you'd have to really work to keep people from finding out other, more demonstrative aspects of who you are that would go relatively unnoticed in a big city. And there's fewer places you can go to that don't care about those aspects, or even support them.

Depends, doesn't it?
You said that unless I made an overt sign of my political leanings in the big city (like putting a yard sign out) that no one would notice. The same holds true in small towns: unless I ran around and told everyone what I was thinking no one would know.

Here in Seattle one needs to be careful. Local lib groups also like to search databases looking for Trump *donors* so they can put you on blast. The clear intent being the hope that somebody pays your house a visit.

Then what a flaming fool you are to have voted for Trump.

You and Umm can climb down your high horse. I voted for Harris. Cannot vote for a delusional liar. Besides the point.
But I also live in California, and there does not seem to be an end to the Democrats' appetite to support minority groups and to demand more money from middle-class people like me.
To someone else up thread, I do support equal rights. But having trans women compete in women's sports is not equal rights any more than having Michael Phelps compete in the Paralympics. Have some common sense.
BLM started out of a true injustice, but "defund the police" turned me off. As did occupy Wall Street and pro-Palestinian students occupying campuses. Democrats love lawbreakers, never clearer than in the craphole that San Francisco became, but these examples as well.

BTW name one majority-Black city in California where you will feel safe walking the streets. Compton, Hawthorne, Oakland? Race by itself doesn't matter but when you mix it with politics it does. Even Californians have had it, which is why the felony threshold for shoplifting is back to $250 again.
Republican lawbreakers - the January 6ers and the neo-Nazis are a distant problem. The homeless and the shoplifters are a local problem and all politics is local.

BTW name one majority-Black city in California where you will feel safe walking the streets.

Is that a function of race or a function of poverty? "Safe" is in the eye of the beholder, but are there any poor communities regardless of ethnicity where you would feel "safe" walking the streets? And if there is, would that be because you are the same ethnicity as the majority of the population, so you wouldn't feel so much like you have a target on your back?

I imagine race and poverty levels tend to be correlated as a byproduct of attitudes that were formed long ago and in places far away from California, but that is precisely why there are efforts to rectify the situation and promote diversity.

I live in California as well, and am white, and when I was in college in the 80's my car broke down once in the Black community of Richmond, near Oakland. I had to spend a night there while my car got fixed. It was quite an eye-opening experience to be literally the only white person I saw the whole time. Yes, I was afraid, and I didn't leave the motel after dark. I felt I would have a target on my back. But in the end, I didn't have any bad experiences with anyone as I got the motel room and went to eat. It gave me a first-hand experience of what it's like to be a minority, that I've never forgotten. Because of that, I believe I am able to regard minorities with more compassion because I know a little of what it feels like.

You and Umm can climb down your high horse. I voted for Harris. Cannot vote for a delusional liar. Besides the point.

See - if you’re not with them, you’re a country destroying Nazi. That’s the left today.

As for guy you mentioned, he’s the reason the Ignore function exists.

Interesting video to watch about the civil war brewing in the Democratic Party.

I think it’s bigger than judt the Democratic Party:

https://thelefthook.substack.com/p/the-brewing-civ...

Is that a function of race or a function of poverty? "Safe" is in the eye of the beholder, but are there any poor communities regardless of ethnicity where you would feel "safe" walking the streets? And if there is, would that be because you are the same ethnicity as the majority of the population, so you wouldn't feel so much like you have a target on your back?

Good question.
I'm sure the knee jerk reaction from many is that I am a racist, but I think it's a function of both.
It's hardly possible to find an
all white, or all Hispanic, or all Asian poor community in California. But a few come close. For example:

I have been to majority-white RV / mobile home park (to visit a Black friend, ironically) a few times. Never felt unsafe. Ditto one of the few remaining drive-in theaters, 99% Hispanic audience. Ditto many parts of Hemet, 99% Hispanic. Then again, many other parts of Hemet also full of Hispanics that I, or other Hispanic people or anyone, would not go into if you paid us a billion dollars.

Cannot say the same about majority-Black cities in California.
Maybe it is a California thing because I was also the only non-Black customer in a Chilis in Maryland, and one of the few in a Bourbon street restaurant, but that was OK. Normal atmosphere, just people who looked different than me.

On the flip side, Black people are definitely "over-policed", pulled over too often for no reason, given the stink eye by cops in general. Not disputing that.

On the flipper side, the Innocence Project notwithstanding, the court system rarely puts people in jail, at least in California, unless they have actually committed a crime. Black people are disproportionately represented. I don't know what to tell you.

exposed to lots of people that think, act, or believe differently than they do, as long as they're members of a small insular community they will be under enormous pressure to conform to that community's norms.

The worst I've heard is a small town that's dominated by a religion like Southern Baptists, who practice shunning.

BTW name one majority-Black city in California where you will feel safe walking the streets

Responding to Dope:

I'm in Manila, meeting parts of my wife's family, and Copper, a retired engineer friend of mine, whose knowledge of history astounds me. I can tell you in any major city across the world there are parts of the city you won't feel safe walking through and parts you will feel safe walking. I always ask the locals, and those who travel there and who are knowledgeable. That's also true of majority black cities of California.

very much unlike Democrats, who only seem to want to advocate for the trans people and the Black people and the lawbreaking illegal immigrants.

To be fair, you left out a couple.

“Women”, for instance, won are seeing their rights (reproductive and otherwise) rolled back with astonishing speed. Which party is doing that?

“Disabled”, for instance, whose supports and abilities to navigate the non-disabled world are being threatened by the rollback of hard-won regulations.

“Veterans”, for instance, whose funding is being cut for medical and psychological problems developed during (and often because of) military service.

“Union members” who, perversely, ignored the threat to their livelihoods in favor of the rah-rah Archie Bunker rhetoric that triggers them.

“Poor”, who are bound to suffer with the kinds of cutbacks in aid and medical help that are being proposed and implemented.

“And yes, Immigrants”, who face rampant discrimination whether they arrived legally or not, and if illegal have no path to citizenship (unless they are millionaires) in spite of the rhetoric that “they should come here legally.”

I do acknowledge that the Republicans have made it SEEM as though “trans” is the top Democratic objective, but that is only because they have mastered the dark art of propaganda, convincing millions of mindless robotrons that it is the #1 issue in the nation. We have seen what other “populists” have managed with their governments: in Britain, in Italy, in Israel, in so many other countries. It’s always “us against them”, with the “them” being some despised minority that can’t effectively put up a propaganda battle on the same terms, whether it’s “immigrants” or “Jews” or “Palestinians” or “EU elites” or whoever.

“Don’t look here, look over there!” And people keep falling for it. Know anybody like that?

“Union members” who, perversely, ignored the threat to their livelihoods in favor of the rah-rah Archie Bunker rhetoric that triggers them.

I was CWA, and have a friends and family who were UAW. I'll never forget one of Trump's
campaign speeches in metro-Detroit in 2016. He said: Ford and GM should move their plants
to Mexico if the union members are not willing to work for less money. I was blown away that
he would explicitly say that, as Trump is the master of innuendo, of maintaining deniable
plausibility. I was even more blown away how Trump's statement did not dent the support for
Trump from most of my union acquaintances. Fools.

Same with Reagan and the air traffic controllers back in the 80's. Union members majority
supported him. They couldn't put 2 and 2 together and think that, gee, if Reagan is busting
that union, then that makes our union weaker. Fools.

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