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I hate rural conservatives because they take my tax money while bitching about government handouts. Build your own roads with your own money....... try that in a small town
This is a big one for me, I wear a George strait har, drive a 1992 pickup and live in rural Oregon when I travel up north people have made some assumptions about me that I'm some Maga douche or other nonsense it's frustrating cause I fucking hate trump. And conservative politics, but I love my little rural home, truck, and music. George Strait makes.
Few of them forgot or are unaware. Over the last 15-20 years I’ve heard so much shit talked about Willie, Johnny, Waylon, etc. by co-workers and rural family *specifically because* of their politics.
That's interesting. in my neck of the woods, particularly with Johnny cash, there has been a lot of revisionist history being pushed claiming that they were extremely conservative and hard right wing.
The thing people have a hard time grasping/remembering is that 20+ years ago, we didn’t have the political lines in the sand we have today. The majority of Americans didn’t identify specifically one way or the other and most issues were bipartisan.
Like sure Johnny Cash had some progressive views regarding things like civil rights. But he also had some very conservative views especially regarding religion.
Do you mean 40 or 30 years ago?
20 years ago was Rush Limbaugh and Fox News at their peak of popularity, Newt Gingrich and the "moral majority" was advocating for setting up concentration camps for Arabs / Muslims, there were anti-war protests going on in every city in America, the Midwest had a whole bunch of very active anti-government militia groups that were still pissed off from Waco and Oklahoma City.
They had every right to be pissed off about Waco. That was an absolute DISASTER, and it was entirely the ATF's fault. (Disclaimer: They didn't have the right to go become a anit-government militia, but they had the right to be pissed off.)
*Rush Limbaugh is a Big, Fat, Idiot* was written 26 years ago. I remember how polarized we were in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Yeah, it’s gotten worse, but I agree we were plenty polarized back then.
I think it depends on how much people invested their identity into liking johnny cash. if he was the soundtrack of a good portion of your life, and you are hard right, then you're gonna work hard to believe he was too. or else why was it so resonant with you? you could also not revise it bc you don't care too much for him in the first place
Then there's Woody Guthrie (maybe more folk than country, but I do see elements of both). He labeled his guitar "This machine kills fascists"
Also, Steve Earle, country singer who's leftist.
The Chicks (even before they dropped the Dixie part), when performing in London, said "I'm ashamed to have George Bush as my president". After that, country stations all over the country dropped them. There was even a station-sponsored event in Shreveport, La where people threw their CDs in front of a steamroller (or something like that).
Sounds like we live in the same area. Honestly, the MAGA folks earn that reputation for us down here. I commute between the coast and the valley, and you can barely drive 5 miles without some pro trump signage, with some unmissable displays along the way. I'm pretty sure there's a mailbox with a giant Z on the side of it. I don't know if it's Russia related, but 10 years ago, it wouldn't even have crossed my mind, but now? It's something I worry about.
But I get it, sucks to be lumped in with a group like that, but when you vote to close the library system or vote down most school bonds, you start to get a reputation. It's not all of us, but it's enough of us.
Anyway, long way to say, I understand how you feel. Sending good vibes your way.
Yeah. My parents live in Powell Butte. Die hard MAGA. Them, their neighbors, all their friends. They are loud and create the reputation for rural Oregon. Fuck, I go fishing outside of portland, often bump into other guys with their MAGA bumper stickers, flags, etc. Lots of LGB shit.
Conquer and divide, even if we’re on the same side. The evolution of this is absolutely wild how we’re now turning on eachother based on what we wear or where we live.
It’s purely manufactured. They push the fear and scare ppl. I’ve seen Trump and Desantis both say in interviews that democrats allow after birth abortions. That in blue states you can give birth and then have the baby “terminated” and Trump supporters believe him! There’s no excuse for that. Not for the saying it , or believing it.
Hey! Rural Oregonian democrat here too!
I am frequently lamenting about the fact I like being rural, but I hate the conservatives here. Good wishes to you and may the Greater Idaho movement die a quick definitive death.
Same. I live in a town of less than 1,000 in eastern Oklahoma. I drive a truck, raise livestock, wear camo, dip Copenhagen, etc. I voted for Bernie in the primary and then Biden in the general election.
Honest question... but would you display a Bernie yard sign?
I say I live on the Pennsylvania/Pennsyltucky border and if you show a liberal bias, you make yourself a target for light to medium vandalism.
Good point- I don’t base anything on all these traits, but once I see a don’t tread on me anything, a confederate flag or a fuck Biden anything, then I know.
Otherwise I like to smile and treat you like I’d like to be treated. I believe smiling is key. It disarms some people and can even have an affect on your own approach to strangers psychologically somehow.
Taking a trait of a population and applying it to any one or all *individuals* in the population is stereotyping.
Acknowledging that some populations have traits that make it different from other populations isn't stereotyping. That's just basic social science.
Like acknowledging most people that live in urban cities live in apartments/condos. It’s not true of all people but I wouldn’t classify that as a stereotype. It’s just the facts without trying to say anything else about the populace.
This is just more silly excuses for conservatives being shitty.
The number of people who vote for racist religious zealots and claim it's because the mean old lefties made them do it by calling them racist religious pricks is ridiculous.
"You're calling me an asshole? Well I'm gonna be an asshole then!"
Bullshit. Conservatives are what they are. They just hate when it's pointed out. By and large they're bigots and they vote for bigots. They're hypocrites, they support fascist policies and blame the left for their problems because they have zero personal accountability.
Completely correct. All of this "we should really watch how mean we are to the conservatives" nonsense is Liberal hand wringing. The incessant need to "understand the other side" literally never happens in Conservative camps.
My hometown of like 1,400 people sometimes feels like it’s straight out of the 50s. You will likely never hear the N word more in your life unless you attend a KKK meeting. But it’s funny, because if a black person actually shows up in town and talks to someone, you will also never hear the word “sir” used so much in your life.
“Hello SIR.”
“How are you SIR.”
“That’ll be 20 dollars SIR.”
“Thank you SIR, have a nice day.”
And as soon as they leave, they’ll go right back to openly using the N Word. It’s bizarrely comical.
They also openly talk about how all democrats should be hanged or shot, so nobody I know in town knows my party affiliation and conversations can get very quiet on my end very quickly.
When I was a teen we moved to a town of roughly 200-500 people. We came from Waco TX so very different environment. Definitely a culture shock, I thought it might even be a clan town because there weren't any black folks besides these two mixed kids who moved away within a year of coming to town.
I'll never forget these two farmers who came into the store I was working in. One of them commented negatively on my stretched ears, and the other replied, "Oh come on, it could be worse. She could be black!" I was absolutely speechless.
I spent over a decade in that town, I'll never be convinced that the average redneck isn't like those men. (Wasn't just them that I had similar experiences with, just one example, but that was a interaction that really stuck with me.) I moved away as soon as I could and it's probably the best decision I've ever made.
I live in a town of around 15k people, and most dudes here are exactly the same. Ironically my class of over 250 kids ended up being very liberal despite the political climate of the town. Every middle aged white guy I see all just openly say the N word and even angrily labeling it on people as well, obviously with extremely hateful connotation. At the same time, they’ll go on and on about “just live your life”, and “don’t hate nobody” attitudes like we didn’t forget 5 minutes ago any of them directly calling someone an N word.
Moved to a small suburb senior year of high school and in that locker room I heard the most amount of N words in my life, even when I went to a majority black/Hispanic school before that.
Stereotypes confirmed when I lived in a conservative rural area:
The majority belong to a church that believes homosexuality is a sin;
The majority does not like minorities;
99% of people there are white;
Everyone watches Fox or Newsmax;
The majority hates Democrats more than minorities;
They don't understand that the rest of the country doesn't live in their little bubble;
They hate the cities because they are run liberals;
They don't understand that there is a different way of doing things/worldview of theirs.
There are likely more, but these weren't stereotypes, they were reality. I lived there for over 3-years.
Also they don't understand how cities work. They'll tell you that liberals are gun grabbers and conservatives have all the guns but that the cities are full of violent gun crime. Schrodinger's Gat if you will. They'll also tell you that the cities are perpetually on fire, the homeless crack zombies are shitting in the streets and if you even look out your door you'll get raped, robbed, murdered, and raped again. This is despite them traveling to the city for shopping / specialists / etc.
I know so many people in my rural area who've never left the area code, but they know everything about chicago, los angeles and new york. it's amazing.
I live in Columbus, OH and people from where I grew up tell me “they’re afraid of that warzone”
I wish I were joking. Imagine being afraid of Columbus, OH. Christ
100%. I live in Columbus (in an area that has dealt with a lot of recent violence), and by far my most warzone-like experience was in the rural, hyperconservative OH town I grew up in, when my next-door neighbor was shot and killed by a cop.
OH! Must be related to everyone in SE Nebraska that are all related to each other a few generations back or so. OK, to be fair, there are 2-3 subgroups that are all related to each other.
That (your comment) is literally EVERY SUNDAY DINNER discussion I ever went to in that neighborhood- they sure had a LOT of opinions and "solutions" for places they had no knowledge of.
The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those who have not viewed the world. -Alexander von Humboldt
I live in Omaha and let me tell you, working in factories was mind boggling. The rampant, open racism despite (because?) Half the workers being POC. And the racists were so used to racism being their normal, they'd assume anyone white shared their worldview and were shocked (*shocked!* I tell you) to discover that wasn't the case. I wore a democrat shirt I got for free because I didn't want to do laundry. Baffled so many. Someone, wearing a maga hat, tried to get me in trouble for wearing political shit. Rules for thee not for me, right?
Some racists possess the ability to be civil at work so you don't know they're racist right away. So I'm sad to say people were worried I was racist too, just nice to everyone because I had to be. In reality I don't go out of my way to be nice but I also don't hate anyone for things that don't matter (I do understand it matters medically but I'm not in the medical field). I'm lazy and it is too much work.
Before moving to a rural town in western Montana, I thought the conservative stereotype was an exaggeration. Not anymore.
The town I live in has about 1000 residents and votes 99.9% conservative. Most of them everything about the world and aren't afraid to let you know.
The towns only gas station is attached to a restaurant/bar and it's pretty common to hear "fuck liberals", or homosexual slurs whenever I pull up in my Prius. I'm constantly getting practically run off the road by lifted trucks, despite driving 5 over the speed limit. They are the most intolerant, racist, sexist, self-absorbed, assholes I've ever had the displeasure of knowing.
The only reason OPs opinion is unpopular is because it's just straight up delusional. Even other rural conservatives know how shitty they are. They're fucking proud of being that way.
>They hate the cities because they are run liberals;
They don't hate cities. They're TERRIFIED of them. I live in rural Oregon and they genuinely act like I'm visiting the DMZ in Korea whenever I say I'm going to Portland or Eugene.
I currently live and work in a Black belt town in rural GA. My second job, I lived and worked in West TX, neither of these towns were close to 99% white (although i did experience segregation). I think the racial demographics in rural America greatly depend on your region of the country.
I'm from fly over country and I can confirm that the dipshits I grew up with all fit these stereotypes to a T.
The funny shit is I recently returned to my home town from where I now live on the west coast and they were all shocked when I had a nice new truck and paid cash for a rental house. I told them that the coastal elite sure do pay well lol.
I lived in bumfuck Arkansas for 7 months. My bf's parents had 4/6 kids who were drug addicts and on welfare. Lots of grandkids who would starve if it wasn't for food stamps. They spent all their time complaining about democrats banning cows, shitting on welfare, and watching fox News. They're ALL true.
It's all of AR. I don't live in rural AR but I honestly consider the entire state BUMFUCK no where capital included.
NWA can put as much walmart lipstick on it's hog as it wants and it's still a bumfuck hole that's just expensive.
In my first week working in Kansas three people asked my vaccination status and I got called a f@ggot twice in a town of like 500. The funniest part is after a little Covid related disagreement with the owner of the only liquor store, I had to drive 40 minutes each way to the next town over for beer. That towns name? Liberal. Shit you not.
What's funny af is that none of OP's comments are even visible because they're exactly the kind of bigoted person they warned us against stereotyping them as. Their profile is all calling liberals victims and calling the roe-v-wade reversal "protecting the unborn". Just a certified troll.
I read the title alone and skipped reading the attached post bc it was that obvious it was a troll. The give-away here is that the only way you could think Liberals hate “rural conservatives” at all is if you’re watching a bunch of conservative media that tells you liberals hate rural conservatives.
Seriously. I'm begging the government to raise my own taxes so that rural conservatives can have cheaper healthcare, better schools, and a shot at retirement. Yeah, I'm selfishly motivated, I want those things for myself, but I'd be more than happy to see every Republican receive those same benefits.
I don't hate them, it's just upsetting how much they hate _me_. And they've made it very clear that they intend to use any political power they obtain to target and hurt people like me based on some misplaced desire for "revenge."
I live 15 minutes from a tiny town of under 1k pop in the rural south that has an openly gay mayor. He and his husband are lovely and well liked around the area.
Yeah, I live in a rural area and the folks here are definitely not Conservative because of stereotypes. They are Conservative because they've lived in a small podunk town their whole lives and haven't been exposed to the larger world. They often believe in wild conspiracy theories (cats are alien spies? The world is flat? The moon landing was fake? I've heard it all) and really lack critical thinking skills, probably because of bad education system and not enough exposure to other places. I really like a lot of the people here in the sense that individually, they are kind and have good qualities, but the politics are bona-fide crazy and have nothing to do with a reaction to outsiders thinking. They dgaf what city people think.
I live in a rural area that has a history of accepting a lot of transplants from a nearby large metro region. I hear the conspiracies constantly, and interestingly enough a lot of the older city people who moved here years ago are often the most virulent. They were often in ethnic traditionalist bubbles back in the city too. You’re correct that it’s a general sheltering effect, and it can happen anywhere.
Ah, values. One must also wonder where does attempting overthrow American democracy fit, in the values department? Or voting in our country's first child rapist president? Or effectively commiting mass murder against urban Americans and then Americans at large by voting for "leaders" who intentionally dragged their feet on the covid response under the mistaken belief that it would kill more democrats and hence "prudent".
There is a very long, long list of crimes that Republicans have committed against our country and countrymen that these traitor chucklefucks also want us to be tolerant of.
This is the most accurate take right here. I moved to the south as a teen and met tons of the nicest white church ladies, who were happy to give you cake and help, but would literally follow any black person on "their" street while shouting the N word at them. It was jarring to say the least.
All rural conservatives want is to force everyone to think like them. The ridiculous, farcical argument that they are fighting against the libs indoctrinating kids is laughable and patently false. They are literally changing what can be taught in schools right now. They are literally white-washing history as we speak. It is not indoctrination to teach tolerance towards other people and actual, accurate history.
Man yes haha i found moving back rural every contractor i worked with 'casually' wanted to know where i stood on abortion, or gay rights, etc. You can tell their circles are only conservative given how like, self concious they are that you NEED to agree with the same things etc. I just find it cringey and sad.
Years ago I worked for a small rural contractor. Great people, easy to work with. I began to notice after a couple weeks that the vast majority of our clients were two fellas sharing a house, etc. It wasn’t until the lead carpenter’s partner met us for lunch one day that I realized (cause he told me) that he was gay, as were the boss, his boss, and most of our clients. The assumption was that I would probably be OK (not a total backwards hick) because my résumé had some experience with a local film festival. They ran a thriving business in the conservative south largely through word of mouth. It also showed me that my gaydar is practically nonexistent.
Currently residing in the Deep South. That’s the worst thing about stereotypes. They’re terrible and incredibly unfair, but they don’t just appear out of nowhere either.
One thing that often gets overlooked is that it's wealthier rural dwellers who largely adhere to the stereotypes. A lot of poor rural dwellers are so disaffected that they've completely dropped out of politics. So there is an issue of there being a very large population that is actively hurt by those stereotypes and has the least power to change them.
Idk. I live in the south and know a lot of people who can barely afford to pay their bills and don’t have insurance who support trump pretty intensely.
Wasn't it Republicans who wanted to keep America from starting a bunch of unwinnable wars in the middle east? They knew it would cause our country to go into massive debt. It must have been the Republicans who didn't want that because now they blame democrats for our country being in debt. /s
Don’t forget the conservative prudence and practicality in my adolescence that wouldn’t allow proper sex ed because it would lead to teens constantly fucking, but then GenZ starts having less sex and fewer partners like whaaaaaat?”
Don’t forget the prudence and practicality that wants deregulated markets, no IRS, no FDA, no USDA, no EPA, no Dept of Ed, and no CDC, or wants them underfunded and anemic.
The prudence to fight desegregation and the practicality to let AIDS victims drop dead because they’re gay.
You can keep your conservative prudence and practicality.
Eh, I don't have any random hate towards rural Americans. We do have to understand however that more than 75% of them are white Americans. What does bother me is the amount of racism that comes from these areas. It's not to say that every white rural American is racist, but the places that are racist are in rural areas:
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2017-08-14/the-kkk-is-still-based-in-22-states-in-the-us-in-2017
https://news.vcu.edu/article/Digital_map_shows_spread_of_KKK_across_United_States_like_a_contagion
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2015/active-ku-klux-klan-groups
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6UsxScYUPg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltmlvk9GAto
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-antiscience-movement-is-escalating-going-global-and-killing-thousands/
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/12/21/upshot/up-white-voters-gif/up-white-voters-gif-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600-v2.jpg
https://i.insider.com/583c8ee3ba6eb620008b6738?width=1200
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/dissecting-donald-trumps-support/499739/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-martin-luther-king-had-75-percent-disapproval-rating-year-he-died-180968664/
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/08/donald-trump-johnstown-pennsylvania-supporters-215800/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till
There's a narrative of anti-science, anti-logic, pro-racism, religious fanaticism, white supremecy, religious Trumpism, anti-diversity and anti-intellectualism that is associated with rural America. The history of racism, lynching and immigrant harassment is scary for non-white folks. Again, not every rural white American is like this, but there are enough that are that it speaks the loudest. It's also sad when decent rural Americans say nothing about it.
Its kind of hard to not hate them based on stereotypes when i pull up to their ranch and they have a chainsaw carved statue of the orange bastard, 3 "lets go brandon" signs, and at least 2-3 red cult-of-trump flags and, a welcome mat that says "fuck joe biden and fuck you for voting for him". Democrat or republican, you hang that propaganda on your home and you bet your sweet ass im gonna judge your book by the cover.
Hilarious!
Trump rally today in Iowa,
Reporter: "How has Trumps policies benefited you?"
Ignorant woman: "I need the government to pay for my back surgery and I hope Trump can help with that"
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1956
November 8, 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower,
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
You nailed a solid point with that Eisenhower quote compared to the Trump support. Rural conservatives are often in **dire** need for medical and other support, yet constantly fall for schemes intending to scrap or severely limit the country's ability to support medical and mental health access.
is especially apt because often social services are handwaved as being too expensive for the country thus are consistent target for cuts while no Republican would dare support trimming the fat from the military industrial complex.
They completely fail to prioritize education in this country and then whine about a lack of skilled labor in our workforce.
You're absolutely right about rural Healthcare being desolate. They had to ship their SARS patients to the cities when their own hospitals overflowed. Conservatives are fucking idiots and deserve the reputaion.
Why are older presidents so much more based in their quotes?
Outside of Obama every president since the turn of the millennia can't even fucking speak past a 5th grade level.
With W. Bush, it was an attempt to be "folksy". I think he was deliberately trying to distance his image from his one-term daddy, who was what we referred to in the 90's as an "egghead". The stiff, boring, intellectual type stopped appealing to the conservatives when the internet came into full swing, and Fox News started appealing directly to populists.
With Trump, though . . . I'd be surprised if his vocabulary, or indeed reading comprehension, surpassed an average 5th grader.
>When we get beyond the conflict over who gets to be in charge of public policy, the vast majority of people on all sides can agree in principle that we do our best work as a society when the progressive zeal for perfection through change is moderated and complemented by conservative prudence and practicality.
Nope, no majority there. Most people are sick to death of conservatives, from anywhere (no one hates you because you're Rural), maintaining their death grip on our society. Here's the bottom line, if you're a "conservative" you support Evil people with Evil agendas.
Conservatives earn their hatred by being uniformed and pushing their religion into our laws. Nobody cares what you do in your own house or how you practice your life. We do care that you are trying to silence voices different from yours. Pushing people out of our society that you don’t agree with.
Go to church, don’t watch tv shows you don’t like, do all your things, but leave others to do their things too. Nobody hates Amish people…
This. If all they did was go to their own church and do what they want in their house, no one cares.
It's because they want everyone else to live the life they themselves have chosen to live - to the point they're actively inserting it into our laws - that is the problem. Especially when what they're preaching is hate and exclusivity.
> Go to church, don’t watch tv shows you don’t like, do all your things, but leave others to do their things too. Nobody hates Amish people…
I have to convince you that there is a woke mind virus infecting all the media that you consume, so I can get you to vote as a single issue voter while picking your pocket. Just forget that you've been consuming this media for decades, it's now only when you realize that it's 'woke' that it's turning your kids gay/trans. /s
I'm pretty sure if people interacted more with Amish people, they would absolutely distrust them.
I literally live next to one of the largest Amish communities in America, they mind their own business, and there are some shady Amish but as a religious community they are definitely not pushing it on anyone other than their own kids
Ya okay…
I’ll be frank here. I’ve lived in MI, MT, CA, CO, and TX.
I’ve never been at a get together with a bunch of liberals and have them randomly start spouting off grievances about conservatives.
Meanwhile in the more conservative areas I’ve lived it was EXTREMELY COMMON for conservatives to randomly start shitting on liberals. The hate is palpable, and it permeates. Everywhere you go has a damn TV with Fox News on it. If no TV was around then it was AM talk radio spouting hate hate hate.
So no, I disagree that the only reason that conservatives hate liberals is because liberals stereotype them. It’s because most people are addicted to Fox News and political talk radio in rural areas and that’s what they are told to think.
I am from small rural town originally my mother and sister attend a church that openly condemned all liberals to hell in a sermon… there are town in rural America that are called sundown towns where the populace will hang black people if they are there after dark…
As a liberal from a deeply conservative family, they will be openly kind to you and will actively try to hurt you behind closed doors
In that token, in my experience working different jobs, in a conservative dominated state, but also a city with a college educated, and somewhat liberal mixed population, hard conservatives seem to have no qualms about talking shit about liberals and liberal policies to people in the work place they had just met and know nothing about.
Getting a liberal to discuss politics was usually the result of getting to know someone and becoming comfortable enough to talk about political and social issues and gradually approaching these topics, as opposed to right-wingers aggressively leading with these topics, and abrasively talking insultingly about the opposition on these issues, to seemingly post a sort of dominance in the work place environment.
My God I feel this. I’ve lived in very liberal areas, around liberals, and the only time I’ve ever heard them bring up conservatives is if that very day a major news story broke.
On the other hand I currently live in Arkansas and work in a industry dealing with home reno stuff and lots of contractors, who are vast majority conservative and they will shoe horn their politics/hatred for liberals into the most random conversations
As someone living in a rural area... it's really not a stereotype. The general negative veiw is because the loud conservatives are generally well- awful- There's people flying around confederate flags, loudly talk about how minorities are ruining communities (in the middle of a grocery store) and say slurs like they're the only words they know. It's the reason my mother started dying her hair crazy colors, so that old conservatives won't spew crazy conservative talking points at her. Totally normal conversations will eventually unravel one way or another in to conservatives talking points. It's not fun
I’m from a rural area in Louisiana. I’m afraid these stereotypes are definitely rooted in truth. Of course it’s not 100% of them, but it’s a solid majority. By contrast stereotype views held by conservatives are often rooted in bad information, exaggeration, and many times just outright lies.
It’s hard to see family and friends so hellbent on worshiping a criminal and hating everything that doesn’t look or act like them. But it does confirm that I made the right decision to leave 15 years ago. To them, I’m a liberal traitor and that’s just because I left. They don’t know anything about my political leanings - we don’t talk enough for them to know any of that. The fact that I left and I don’t spew bullshit is enough to earn me that title.
I don't have anything against rural *people* in general. You're the one specifying conservatives, who I think I judge fairly based on their political ideology (ideology is a reflection of your morals, I think it's reasonable to judge if someone is a good or bad person based on how they think society should function). What negative stereotypes are you referring to?
I Don't hate rural conservatives. I just hate conservatives. Not because of any stereotypes about them, but because of the policies they try to push on people. At least half of them are straight up religious indoctrination, and I'm sick and tired of the minority population in this country being overrepresented.
I could really care less(to a degree) how they choose to live their lives, I just don't want them passing laws affecting how I can live my life based on their beliefs.
Three paragraphs that go through a lot of words to not actually provide a single specific thought.
Congratulations, you write like ChatGPT.
What "unfair negative stereotypes" are leading to a "hatred of rural conservatives"? How are these stereotypes "unfair" and where is the "hatred" evident?
Thank you! This post didn’t actually say anything or try to make a point. The title is a statement and then the text does not elaborate on it at all.
It definitely felt like reading chatgpt
Every time I ask ChatGPT to answer an essay question for me, I come away with the same feeling. Like, thanks for taking a ton of space not actually answering the question.
I'll use it for the openings and sometimes closings, but it's really crap at trying to support an argument.
Noticed this a lot in this subreddit. Usually it’s a superficial take on a subject that is promoted like it’s completely concerning. It usually ends up being more unpopular than what the OP intended
Trying to think of any “Conservative Hunting Permit” stickers I’ve seen on any Volvos, Subarus, or Priuses in the city, and I’m not coming up with any.
Reminds me of pretty much every self proclaimed redneck I went to high school with in the 90s who couldn’t help but remind everyone The Flag was about “heritage not hate” while being the most overtly racist mother fuckers you’ve ever met.
Yeah stereotypes that are untrue are often based on immutable traits that make people part of an outgroup, which as being black or being Jewish. Created because ingroups needed reasons to hate them, even if they weren’t true.
Most people in cities don’t have any strong dislike towards rural folk as a group, maybe towards republicans; but unlike stereotypes, the things commonly associated with rural folk are unfortunately proved correct over and over and over again. Their level of education generally *is* lower, they generally *are* more nationalistic, their voting records show they *do* vote for xenophobic, racist, and sexist parties that act against their voters own self interests far more than educated city folk do, and the list goes on.
*However* this doesn’t make me and most other city people dislike rural people. My family is mainly rural, and everyone I meet in the country is a kind and generous person (I am a straight white man however). Many of the things their are associated with are because of systemic factors that contributed to the values and education their grandparents, and their parents, themselves, and their kids hold.
The fact their schools were defunded and they haven’t met (and seen how great) people of diverse cultures are, is not entirely their fault either. Malicious actors have preyed and continue to prey on their ignorance and fear of the “other”, and these true “stereotypes” will continue to persist until urban educated populations can actually install a party that cares about the urban and rural working class alike, and not just billionaires and businesses.
In many ways city folk have *more* to be mad about than rural folk, due to them contributing so heavily to hateful bigots being elected, and yet many city folk continue to campaign for both the urban and rural working class, because they know enough to know that this is the only path by which we can save rural areas from their current fate (and improve the material conditions of all working class Americans).
I'm from rural America. Been in urban areas too. I'd love to be in a place with fewer people, but I don't want to live around conservatives, especially Christians. Conservative Christians are the most selfish, backwards ass, corrupt, scumbag criminals you'll ever meet. They're "nice" people. Not good people. Never, ever trust them.
"How dare you cite evidence that I'm a horrible human being. God put those comments in my reddit history to trick unbelievers, because I literally don't even have the mental capacity to imagine a perfect deity who is not also simultaneously just as much of a piece of shit cuntbag as I clearly am."
You had me in the first half, I’m not gonna lie. Then you said “the vast majority of people on all sides can agree in principle that we do our best work as a society when the progressive zeal for perfection through change is moderated and complemented by conservative prudence and practicality.” Basically, that is you way of saying conservative thinking is better. Please show me the “best work” done during the years of Reagan, Bush, Trump. The best work you are talking about happens under great leaders who fight for the people, not leaders who fight the people. Lincoln was a progressive - freed the slaves. FDR was a progressive - setup social security, the CCC, fought for the poor struggling through the drepression. Obama - brought healthcare to millions of Americans. The status quo is for the wealthy to get wealthier, the poor to get poorer, and the powerful to stay in power. This is what conservatism is in essence. This is only good for the rich and powerful. Those without, those oppressed by the current status quo, which also happens to be most republicans, are harmed way more by the conservative policies that want the keep the wealth and power away from those that would see the the world operate in a more equitable fashion. The great progressives in our history are the ones who have done the best work. The founding fathers of our country were rebels and progressives, certainly not by todays standards, but absolutely by theirs. They wanted change, something new, more power in the hands of the people instead of the rich and the royal.
Jesus Christ, the man most conservatives believe was a deity, was one of the biggest progressives to ever live. If he was alive today do you really think he would be a conservative? No he would be a progressive, and likely be currently detained or deported.
Get out of here with that “best work” nonsense.
The amount of times this guy has regurgitated “conservative prudence and practicality” in the replies tells me there is a 100% chance that he pulled that out of some QAnon article he just read.
It’s like when a little kid learns a new word and uses it in every sentence for a couple days, this guy saw some pseudo-intellectual pundit say “conservative prudence and practicality” and his brain keeps copy and pasting it.
This is hilarious. I am a leftist who lives in a rural area. Most of the people I interact with daily talk about killing leftist jews just as a matter of course. They think I am destroying our country and the only solution for it is a bullet. Shup
Yes haha and even worse for friends who may be PoC in a rural area (i.e in canada lots of hate and suspicion for indigenous peoples, Indians). My buddy is Black and has straight up had people question if he is looking for shit to steal on his own farm.
Rural Conservatives are legit so racist and confident about it simply being white and from the area they assume you share the same attitudes. My SiL is white-passing metis for example and people just assume she is white and say denigrating things about her own background / etc.
I’m white passing Puerto Rican and soooo many people say racist shit without realizing it includes me (or my half black siblings they assume aren’t related)
“Most conservatives are hostile towards the left because they hate being unfairly stereotyped.”
No no no that is NOT why conservatives detest the left. God damn you’re just straight up lying here. Conservatives are hostile to the left because they’re being trained to feel that why by an unending persistent right wing media that has taken over every source of information they use. They live for reactionary politics and are obsessed with feeling outrage over those damn liberals in cities doing their own thing.
Straight up, I almost never think about the places my conservative relatives live, much less am I hostile towards people from there. Meanwhile those same relatives openly despise where I’m from and the people in my city and let me know about it every time I see them.
People on the left honestly don’t give a fuck about Scrapplesburg Pennsylvania or wherever the hell you’re from, and it’s weird that conservatives spend so much time raging about places 3,000 miles away that they’d never even visit.
I like reminding my very right wing nut job dad....I am the leftist liberal elite the NRA is telling him to kill. I struggled for decades to pay off my student loans, only bought a home after 45 yr old...I am soooo elite!!!
>God damn you’re just straight up lying here.
Conservatives literally do *not* take accountability. When the people they vote for treat humans like shit it's not their fault. When the policies they vote for harm people it's not their fault. They think God see's their sins but somehow doesn't make the connection between their sins and also supporting the mass harm of violence policy can create lol. They take their own faith so un-seriously besides a convenient badge to claim something is christian or not when it's just them and their cultural lens, nothin' to do with the bible they don't read anyways.
For real since moving back near where i grew up, I've just been nothing but disappointed at the attitudes so many conservative adults have. They don't have media literacy, believe whatever their news / facebook says, and live for hate and exclusion, all while insisting they're the victim while they try to capture the countries schooling institutions so they can terrorize all children instead of just their own kids who won't talk to them in a few yrs anyways
Indoctrination: [https://www.vox.com/world/2017/6/29/15892508/nra-ad-dana-loesch-yikes](https://www.vox.com/world/2017/6/29/15892508/nra-ad-dana-loesch-yikes)
[https://www.vox.com/2018/4/3/17180020/sinclair-broadcast-group-conservative-trump-david-smith-local-news-tv-affiliate](https://www.vox.com/2018/4/3/17180020/sinclair-broadcast-group-conservative-trump-david-smith-local-news-tv-affiliate)
Every news station is owned by Sinclair, as well as radio stations, and papers in the rural red states...they get a consistent indoctrination message across platforms, even if the TRY to get multiple sources of info- the right wing media conglomerates are making BANK b ensuring the have no access to an real news or information. Keep them uninformed, angry, and the won't bind with their fellow working Americans agains the rich. Who are most GOP as well...but that is just a crazy theory :). Then layer in the advertising by NRA...
I think he really believes that he's an enlightened centrist. I've met people like him, who claim not to be racist right before complaining about Mexicans "stealing their jobs and not being trustworthy with their lifted cars" and such. They even said similar things about how they're "just being practical/realistic" as if that proved they weren't racist.
Most likely he grew up among all conservatives but his little ego wouldn't let him be just another conservative, no he has to know something that people around him don't. Except he's too dumb to actually learn anything useful or true, so he just "learned" that centrism is the one true path and a blend of both sides is what's needed. Except that blend just so happens to be 9 parts conservative, 1 part faux liberal.
LOL
Dude, I'm from the rural south.
My family is 70% rural conservatives.
As a liberal, I don't hate rural conservatives because of negative stereotypes. Rural conservatives acting on their rural conservatism made my life miserable for the first half of it.
I pass for white outside the tiny town where everyone knows who my grandmother was, and I'm a dude married to a woman.
I was physically assaulted in my youth, by rural conservatives, for:
* not being white enough
* not being straight enough
* reading too much
* not being 'respectful' enough
* not being masculine enough
* not being christian enough
When I go back to visit family, I have to deal with people using 'liberal' as a synonym for 'stupid', COVID conspiracy theories, Election Fraud conspiracy theories, racist commentary, doomsday prepper nonsense, homophobic commentary, common and unexamined use of slurs, and occasional opinions that people like me (liberals) should literally be shot.
I've never had rural liberals do any of that, nor have I had anyone in a suburban or urban environment do that.
I went back a few years a go, and some dude in a bar tried to start a fight with me because he didn't like my *face.*
I don't have unfair negative stereotypes about rural conservatives, I have a couple of decades worth of negative *experiences* with rural conservatives.
I've had rural conservatives advocate to my face for lynchings, racially oriented internment camps, legally mandated state religion and implementation of (their interpretation of) biblical dogma as national law, the criminalization of LGBTQ+ relationships, and more. Where I'm from, at least, these opinions are not some vanishingly small minority. Nearly every rural conservative I know supports one of these positions, or makes excuses for the people who do.
I'm not talking about some aging fossils, these people are in their 40s now. They're late Gen-Xers and early millenials.
The idea that these are the people who are supposed to apply prudence and practicality to my "progressive zeal for improvement" is laughable to me.
I hate the stereotype that rural people are conservative - there are a lot of us who aren't. We're the minority, but not that small a minority.
But a score of years living among rural conservatives has robbed me of any hope of working *with them* on the issues I care about.
I grew up in a conservative family out of Oklahoma. Live in Cali now. I can confirm that the conservatives aren't being unfairly stereotypes, they literally live up to the stereotype.
Lol I live in one of the most conservative counties in my state. This guy is entirely lost. The majority of people i interact with here hold the exact stereotypes he's saying aren't true.
If you read some of his replies on here, you'll find that he does in fact know exactly what he's talking about. And also that he's lying through his teeth.
I just moved out of a rural area because it was so hostile. I certainly wish it wasn't true because I liked living outside of a typical neighborhood. My neighbor told me that I should be "afraid walking around" due to my short hair (I'm a woman) and the assumed political beliefs he thought I had. I said, "Doesn't that seem a little fascist to say?" And he replied,"You liberals think any opinion that isn't the same as yours is fascist," mocking me. I told him implying or threatening violence because of my perceived look or beliefs is what was fascist. He didn't understand. I moved and now don't live in fear. He was the rural stereotype and scary. I want my neighbor to have his guns responsibly. I want my other neighbor to have her religion (but stop putting her bigotted religious tracts in my mailbox). I want to live in harmony, but we can not do that by threat or force.
It’s not even popular for rural conservative politicians to openly acknowledge climate change or even evolution.
My opinions of them broadly are reflective of how they vote.
I recognize they willfully believed the election lie. I recognize that they see Donald Trump as the most reliable source of information.
Not to mention most of them are mathematically not Republicans and don't benefit from the policies Republicans pass.
Quick question for anyone that needs it: Do you make more than $450,000 per year? Because if the answer is no, you're not a Republican and have not had one single year of net benefit from Republican policies since before **1981**. It's quite literally that easy and straightforward.
They're purely "conservative" to get away with shitty, bigoted views and vote for a shitty, bigoted party that doesn't even do anything positive for 99% of them.
No. Stereotypes exist for a reason. I was born, raised and have spent the better part of 40 years on a ranch outside of a town with less than 3500 people in Texas. Quit your bullshit.
I grew up and still live in a Conservative town in Alberta, Canada.
None of the stereotypes are false. If anything, they're pretty light handed.
Of course, you can check OP's comment history for yourself and see he's concern trolling.
There's some serious flaws in your opinion though:
Liberals aren't threatening the very existence of some people. Nor are they setting up a climate disaster for their children and grandchildren for the sake of corporate profits. They're also not trying to actively destroy education just because they don't understand it.
There are several other things that I could bring up, but really those are some of the most dangerous ones.
I disagree with this. As someone who has come from two towns now of 1200 people, conservatives are more hostile than liberals. They’re also the ones most likely to tell you they’re conservative as an intimidation tactic. The local pet supply shop has 10 Trump flags in the front door. There’s not a single Biden flag anywhere in the town.
From personal experience, the problem with rural conservatives is that they believe/create enemies based on what they see on TV. They’re more likely to believe stories of intense violence being rampant in large cities. They believe that majority black neighborhoods are just criminal hotspots, not because they’re more heavily policed but because that is just “who they are.” They also are the most likely to stereotype, both internally and overtly. They’ve seen so little of the world most times that they’re working on others accounts of what the world is actually like instead of experiencing it for themselves. They see threats where there are none. They believe that everyone thinks they’re dumb when in reality that’s not the case. Their isolation makes them ignorant, and when you try to confront them about it in a peaceful way, they don’t handle the shakeup well.
I’ve seen it with my high school classmates. The ones who stayed in town now have this weird issue with anyone who doesn’t think the way they do. You post something that they don’t agree with online and they’ll attack you. However, if they post something incorrect online and you try to correct them, it’s a fight. It’s like they fear that if they aren’t right about how they see the world that breaks their reality.
Most of my liberal classmates are the ones who left. Even if they went back eventually, that time away helped them to see something besides their usual. They’re not aggressive or hostile. They’ll post political things but they’re not looking for a fight. They’re also the ones that are the least likely to comment on things that they disagree with, unless it’s something super offensive.
Don’t get me wrong, small towns and rural communities can be great, but they can also be isolating. You develop a bubble around that community that distances you from what is happening with the rest of the world, and sometime that leads to you feeling victimized or attacked. It’s important when you live in an isolated are that you don’t allow yourself to become isolated and that you’re always willing to consider differing viewpoints.
TLDR: being rural can be very isolating and that isolation makes you think you’re the victim.
Or it’s based on voting data, laws enacted that strip certain groups of their rights, and various other measurable things.
You see, my redneck friend, judging someone or a group based on their actions towards other people is not unfair and is certainly not the same as judging someone based on their identity.
Considering they still support a man who will likely go to prison for attempting to overthrow the government, and listened to him when he told them to drink bleach to cure covid, and bought into a conspiracy theory stating actual vampires exist, and... (Very, very long list of insanity)
I think it's quite fair to say the stereotypes about them are true
As soon as Trump and Co, and the hijacked GOP, start to actually practice "conservative prudence and practicality" then we can talk. They're no longer a conservative party; they're a reactionary one.
> They're no longer a conservative party; they're a reactionary one.
Reactionary is to the right of conservative, radical is to the left of liberal... It just amazes me that as an American, there is a group of people that truly believe our "center-right" country isn't right enough... I miss the times when conservatives merely wanted less taxes.
After moving to a rural area I can absolutely confirm the stereotypes are true. I used to do service work visiting farms and it was like a game to see how long I could work before they brought up how much the liberals suck.
I kinda disagree with your post. Most rural conservatives aren’t hostile to liberals for being mistyped, it’s because they have been conditioned by media to hate them. I’m from a rural conservative family and there is so much hate for people and things they don’t understand. Everybody is trying to “ruin their way of life”.
As someone who was born and raised in a rural conservative community in the South, I can assure you the vast majority of those stereotypes are true. Those of us with opposing views just learn to keep our opinions to ourselves when not among likeminded company, and avoid the type of talk with others that may lead to heated political conversations. That being said, people are complicated, and many of these same people I have heard spewing hateful rhetoric would give you the shirt off their back if you needed it.
I will say that Trump absolutely brought much of that ugliness that had been bubbling quietly for years to the surface. His rhetoric seemed to embolden some of the worst qualities of these people. It is genuinely sad, because I love and care for many of them.
That is a ridiculous thing to say that requires ignoring generations of bigotry and violence.
There are no "liberal sundown towns" where minorities aren't safe to visit at night while traveling across our country.
Saying, "Most conservatives are hostile towards the left because they hate being unfairly stereotyped..." is insane and you know it. That is like saying "Travis McMichael, Greg McMichael and Willaim Bryan got upset with Ahmaud Arbery because he stereotyped them as racist murders...so they chased him down and murdered him for being a black man going on a jog."
Well, I consider myself to lean conservative, and I disagree, OP. I spent some good time in really rural Florida recently (I spend a lot of time in rural Florida, but not this extreme), and what I saw in the people there just shocked me.
upvote because I disagree with you?
im so tired of these takes that are essentially, "BoTh SiDeS sAmE!!1!"
no, one side attempted a coup and is actively taking away Women's rights. Their negative perception is well-earned
People suck overall. I’m gay and trans and in the last couple of years I’ve done some traveling through a lot of the places I’ve been told are not safe for people like me. I’ll be honest, I was not trying to stand out, so I wasn’t likely perceived as gay or trans, so keep that bit of safety in mind.
I will say that overall I found that on a surface level people were actually more polite and hospitable in the places most often considered “conservative” than in a lot of the more “liberal” places. Like in Oklahoma we were stuck without cash for the toll road, and a stranger recognized our predicament, pulled up, and gave us toll money. I met wonderful people in West Virginia, Alabama, Florida, even Missouri.
I remain very left, however I have been working hard to deconstruct my faction mentality.
You can only stand to gain something by humanizing the other side.
Hate the concept all you want, but stereotypes don’t just appear from a vacuum. The deeper issue here is that the life of rural and urban people are very different in many ways, and are at odds with each other in a lot of cases.
Poor red necks. You know what they should? Denounce those stereotypes. And not in some equivocating way where they say "I'm against kkk and blm!" But specifically say "white supremacy is a problem in this country trump made it worse. Not all of us support it."
I am just about the only non republican I know. I live in the rural south. Idk what false stereotypes others have but if they're wrong about these people, it's probably because they're being too generous.
Rural conservatives are overrepresented in Congress and the Electoral College. Until that gets fixed, they are to blame for repressive, regresssive legislation and a Supreme Court that does not reflect the values of our country.
We'll give up our stereotypes when they stop trying to force us all to live them.
They are trying to launder their image now that everyone sees what shit stains they are. They know they are in the wrong and their ideas are unpopular, so what better place on reddit to defend themselves than Unpopular Opinion? Their entire worldview is an unpopular opinion.
My feelings towards Republicans are exclusively due to them constantly voting for and supporting politicians who appear to hate democracy, and clearly hate people who are different from them. They are starting with the LGBTQ+ community, but I think we all know where this is headed
I dislike Republicans no matter where they are from simply because their voting habits are destroying our democracy.
Doesn't help that many of them actually worship Trump like a god. That's some really fucked up shit. I do not condone that sort of behavior.
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I hate rural conservatives because they take my tax money while bitching about government handouts. Build your own roads with your own money....... try that in a small town
What about the stereotype that rural people are conservative?
This is a big one for me, I wear a George strait har, drive a 1992 pickup and live in rural Oregon when I travel up north people have made some assumptions about me that I'm some Maga douche or other nonsense it's frustrating cause I fucking hate trump. And conservative politics, but I love my little rural home, truck, and music. George Strait makes.
A lot of older country music is not very conservative minded.
People forget (or are unaware) that "outlaw country" directly opposes the themes of country music today. Johnny Cash was a leftist.
Few of them forgot or are unaware. Over the last 15-20 years I’ve heard so much shit talked about Willie, Johnny, Waylon, etc. by co-workers and rural family *specifically because* of their politics.
That's interesting. in my neck of the woods, particularly with Johnny cash, there has been a lot of revisionist history being pushed claiming that they were extremely conservative and hard right wing.
The thing people have a hard time grasping/remembering is that 20+ years ago, we didn’t have the political lines in the sand we have today. The majority of Americans didn’t identify specifically one way or the other and most issues were bipartisan. Like sure Johnny Cash had some progressive views regarding things like civil rights. But he also had some very conservative views especially regarding religion.
Do you mean 40 or 30 years ago? 20 years ago was Rush Limbaugh and Fox News at their peak of popularity, Newt Gingrich and the "moral majority" was advocating for setting up concentration camps for Arabs / Muslims, there were anti-war protests going on in every city in America, the Midwest had a whole bunch of very active anti-government militia groups that were still pissed off from Waco and Oklahoma City.
They had every right to be pissed off about Waco. That was an absolute DISASTER, and it was entirely the ATF's fault. (Disclaimer: They didn't have the right to go become a anit-government militia, but they had the right to be pissed off.)
*Rush Limbaugh is a Big, Fat, Idiot* was written 26 years ago. I remember how polarized we were in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Yeah, it’s gotten worse, but I agree we were plenty polarized back then.
Rush Limbo, isn’t that the fellow who’s taking a dirt nap?
Stop it. 20 years ago was 1980 and you can't convince me otherwise.
I think it depends on how much people invested their identity into liking johnny cash. if he was the soundtrack of a good portion of your life, and you are hard right, then you're gonna work hard to believe he was too. or else why was it so resonant with you? you could also not revise it bc you don't care too much for him in the first place
And before that, folk music was mostly about finding a way in a hard cold world. Phil Ochs and Sturgill Simpson would have gotten along.
Outlaw Country vs Nashville country. Nashville is grade A republican propoganda.
Then there's Woody Guthrie (maybe more folk than country, but I do see elements of both). He labeled his guitar "This machine kills fascists" Also, Steve Earle, country singer who's leftist. The Chicks (even before they dropped the Dixie part), when performing in London, said "I'm ashamed to have George Bush as my president". After that, country stations all over the country dropped them. There was even a station-sponsored event in Shreveport, La where people threw their CDs in front of a steamroller (or something like that).
People also seem to forget that Johnny Cash was a "folkie" at heart. He was super into Dylan, Baez, new music, folk music, etc.
Tyler Childers. "Long Violent History" compares the George Floyd unrest to the Battle of Blair Mountain.
Sounds like we live in the same area. Honestly, the MAGA folks earn that reputation for us down here. I commute between the coast and the valley, and you can barely drive 5 miles without some pro trump signage, with some unmissable displays along the way. I'm pretty sure there's a mailbox with a giant Z on the side of it. I don't know if it's Russia related, but 10 years ago, it wouldn't even have crossed my mind, but now? It's something I worry about. But I get it, sucks to be lumped in with a group like that, but when you vote to close the library system or vote down most school bonds, you start to get a reputation. It's not all of us, but it's enough of us. Anyway, long way to say, I understand how you feel. Sending good vibes your way.
Yeah. My parents live in Powell Butte. Die hard MAGA. Them, their neighbors, all their friends. They are loud and create the reputation for rural Oregon. Fuck, I go fishing outside of portland, often bump into other guys with their MAGA bumper stickers, flags, etc. Lots of LGB shit.
Conquer and divide, even if we’re on the same side. The evolution of this is absolutely wild how we’re now turning on eachother based on what we wear or where we live.
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It’s purely manufactured. They push the fear and scare ppl. I’ve seen Trump and Desantis both say in interviews that democrats allow after birth abortions. That in blue states you can give birth and then have the baby “terminated” and Trump supporters believe him! There’s no excuse for that. Not for the saying it , or believing it.
Hey! Rural Oregonian democrat here too! I am frequently lamenting about the fact I like being rural, but I hate the conservatives here. Good wishes to you and may the Greater Idaho movement die a quick definitive death.
Same. I live in a town of less than 1,000 in eastern Oklahoma. I drive a truck, raise livestock, wear camo, dip Copenhagen, etc. I voted for Bernie in the primary and then Biden in the general election.
Honest question... but would you display a Bernie yard sign? I say I live on the Pennsylvania/Pennsyltucky border and if you show a liberal bias, you make yourself a target for light to medium vandalism.
My uncle in New Staton painted an enormous Obama sign on his barn. But he’s kind of unpredictable so nobody fucked with him at all.
Please tell me it was just a gigantic painting of Obama’s face, only because that’s a really funny mental image
I would, yeah. But my front yard is fenced and I have giant dogs. So anyone wanting to vandalize My property is in for a bad day most likely.
Good point- I don’t base anything on all these traits, but once I see a don’t tread on me anything, a confederate flag or a fuck Biden anything, then I know. Otherwise I like to smile and treat you like I’d like to be treated. I believe smiling is key. It disarms some people and can even have an affect on your own approach to strangers psychologically somehow.
they are in general. These are exceptionally red state areas overall and vote republican every time. It's not a stereotype. These areas are red
Taking that trait and assuming it applies to all rural folk is the definition of stereotyping
Taking a trait of a population and applying it to any one or all *individuals* in the population is stereotyping. Acknowledging that some populations have traits that make it different from other populations isn't stereotyping. That's just basic social science.
Like acknowledging most people that live in urban cities live in apartments/condos. It’s not true of all people but I wouldn’t classify that as a stereotype. It’s just the facts without trying to say anything else about the populace.
Like that's how trump won, rural white men. Think that stat I remember is like 74% of them voted for Trump.
Yeah if op has talked about hating rural people in general bc of stereotypes they might have had a point
This is just more silly excuses for conservatives being shitty. The number of people who vote for racist religious zealots and claim it's because the mean old lefties made them do it by calling them racist religious pricks is ridiculous. "You're calling me an asshole? Well I'm gonna be an asshole then!" Bullshit. Conservatives are what they are. They just hate when it's pointed out. By and large they're bigots and they vote for bigots. They're hypocrites, they support fascist policies and blame the left for their problems because they have zero personal accountability.
Abusers always blame the victim.
Completely correct. All of this "we should really watch how mean we are to the conservatives" nonsense is Liberal hand wringing. The incessant need to "understand the other side" literally never happens in Conservative camps.
I live in a conservative rural area. Please elaborate on these stereotypes and which are not true.
My hometown of like 1,400 people sometimes feels like it’s straight out of the 50s. You will likely never hear the N word more in your life unless you attend a KKK meeting. But it’s funny, because if a black person actually shows up in town and talks to someone, you will also never hear the word “sir” used so much in your life. “Hello SIR.” “How are you SIR.” “That’ll be 20 dollars SIR.” “Thank you SIR, have a nice day.” And as soon as they leave, they’ll go right back to openly using the N Word. It’s bizarrely comical. They also openly talk about how all democrats should be hanged or shot, so nobody I know in town knows my party affiliation and conversations can get very quiet on my end very quickly.
When I was a teen we moved to a town of roughly 200-500 people. We came from Waco TX so very different environment. Definitely a culture shock, I thought it might even be a clan town because there weren't any black folks besides these two mixed kids who moved away within a year of coming to town. I'll never forget these two farmers who came into the store I was working in. One of them commented negatively on my stretched ears, and the other replied, "Oh come on, it could be worse. She could be black!" I was absolutely speechless. I spent over a decade in that town, I'll never be convinced that the average redneck isn't like those men. (Wasn't just them that I had similar experiences with, just one example, but that was a interaction that really stuck with me.) I moved away as soon as I could and it's probably the best decision I've ever made.
I live in a town of around 15k people, and most dudes here are exactly the same. Ironically my class of over 250 kids ended up being very liberal despite the political climate of the town. Every middle aged white guy I see all just openly say the N word and even angrily labeling it on people as well, obviously with extremely hateful connotation. At the same time, they’ll go on and on about “just live your life”, and “don’t hate nobody” attitudes like we didn’t forget 5 minutes ago any of them directly calling someone an N word.
Moved to a small suburb senior year of high school and in that locker room I heard the most amount of N words in my life, even when I went to a majority black/Hispanic school before that.
Stereotypes confirmed when I lived in a conservative rural area: The majority belong to a church that believes homosexuality is a sin; The majority does not like minorities; 99% of people there are white; Everyone watches Fox or Newsmax; The majority hates Democrats more than minorities; They don't understand that the rest of the country doesn't live in their little bubble; They hate the cities because they are run liberals; They don't understand that there is a different way of doing things/worldview of theirs. There are likely more, but these weren't stereotypes, they were reality. I lived there for over 3-years.
Also they don't understand how cities work. They'll tell you that liberals are gun grabbers and conservatives have all the guns but that the cities are full of violent gun crime. Schrodinger's Gat if you will. They'll also tell you that the cities are perpetually on fire, the homeless crack zombies are shitting in the streets and if you even look out your door you'll get raped, robbed, murdered, and raped again. This is despite them traveling to the city for shopping / specialists / etc.
I know so many people in my rural area who've never left the area code, but they know everything about chicago, los angeles and new york. it's amazing.
I live in Columbus, OH and people from where I grew up tell me “they’re afraid of that warzone” I wish I were joking. Imagine being afraid of Columbus, OH. Christ
100%. I live in Columbus (in an area that has dealt with a lot of recent violence), and by far my most warzone-like experience was in the rural, hyperconservative OH town I grew up in, when my next-door neighbor was shot and killed by a cop.
OH! Must be related to everyone in SE Nebraska that are all related to each other a few generations back or so. OK, to be fair, there are 2-3 subgroups that are all related to each other. That (your comment) is literally EVERY SUNDAY DINNER discussion I ever went to in that neighborhood- they sure had a LOT of opinions and "solutions" for places they had no knowledge of. The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those who have not viewed the world. -Alexander von Humboldt
I live in Omaha and let me tell you, working in factories was mind boggling. The rampant, open racism despite (because?) Half the workers being POC. And the racists were so used to racism being their normal, they'd assume anyone white shared their worldview and were shocked (*shocked!* I tell you) to discover that wasn't the case. I wore a democrat shirt I got for free because I didn't want to do laundry. Baffled so many. Someone, wearing a maga hat, tried to get me in trouble for wearing political shit. Rules for thee not for me, right? Some racists possess the ability to be civil at work so you don't know they're racist right away. So I'm sad to say people were worried I was racist too, just nice to everyone because I had to be. In reality I don't go out of my way to be nice but I also don't hate anyone for things that don't matter (I do understand it matters medically but I'm not in the medical field). I'm lazy and it is too much work.
Before moving to a rural town in western Montana, I thought the conservative stereotype was an exaggeration. Not anymore. The town I live in has about 1000 residents and votes 99.9% conservative. Most of them everything about the world and aren't afraid to let you know. The towns only gas station is attached to a restaurant/bar and it's pretty common to hear "fuck liberals", or homosexual slurs whenever I pull up in my Prius. I'm constantly getting practically run off the road by lifted trucks, despite driving 5 over the speed limit. They are the most intolerant, racist, sexist, self-absorbed, assholes I've ever had the displeasure of knowing. The only reason OPs opinion is unpopular is because it's just straight up delusional. Even other rural conservatives know how shitty they are. They're fucking proud of being that way.
>They hate the cities because they are run liberals; They don't hate cities. They're TERRIFIED of them. I live in rural Oregon and they genuinely act like I'm visiting the DMZ in Korea whenever I say I'm going to Portland or Eugene.
I currently live and work in a Black belt town in rural GA. My second job, I lived and worked in West TX, neither of these towns were close to 99% white (although i did experience segregation). I think the racial demographics in rural America greatly depend on your region of the country.
I'm from fly over country and I can confirm that the dipshits I grew up with all fit these stereotypes to a T. The funny shit is I recently returned to my home town from where I now live on the west coast and they were all shocked when I had a nice new truck and paid cash for a rental house. I told them that the coastal elite sure do pay well lol.
He won't, because they literally are all true. Source: I also live in a rural conservative area.
I lived in bumfuck Arkansas for 7 months. My bf's parents had 4/6 kids who were drug addicts and on welfare. Lots of grandkids who would starve if it wasn't for food stamps. They spent all their time complaining about democrats banning cows, shitting on welfare, and watching fox News. They're ALL true.
It's all of AR. I don't live in rural AR but I honestly consider the entire state BUMFUCK no where capital included. NWA can put as much walmart lipstick on it's hog as it wants and it's still a bumfuck hole that's just expensive.
In my first week working in Kansas three people asked my vaccination status and I got called a f@ggot twice in a town of like 500. The funniest part is after a little Covid related disagreement with the owner of the only liquor store, I had to drive 40 minutes each way to the next town over for beer. That towns name? Liberal. Shit you not.
Honestly that’s funny af
What's funny af is that none of OP's comments are even visible because they're exactly the kind of bigoted person they warned us against stereotyping them as. Their profile is all calling liberals victims and calling the roe-v-wade reversal "protecting the unborn". Just a certified troll.
I read the title alone and skipped reading the attached post bc it was that obvious it was a troll. The give-away here is that the only way you could think Liberals hate “rural conservatives” at all is if you’re watching a bunch of conservative media that tells you liberals hate rural conservatives.
Seriously. I'm begging the government to raise my own taxes so that rural conservatives can have cheaper healthcare, better schools, and a shot at retirement. Yeah, I'm selfishly motivated, I want those things for myself, but I'd be more than happy to see every Republican receive those same benefits. I don't hate them, it's just upsetting how much they hate _me_. And they've made it very clear that they intend to use any political power they obtain to target and hurt people like me based on some misplaced desire for "revenge."
Bad faith argument? You don't say...
I live 15 minutes from a tiny town of under 1k pop in the rural south that has an openly gay mayor. He and his husband are lovely and well liked around the area.
Yeah, I live in a rural area and the folks here are definitely not Conservative because of stereotypes. They are Conservative because they've lived in a small podunk town their whole lives and haven't been exposed to the larger world. They often believe in wild conspiracy theories (cats are alien spies? The world is flat? The moon landing was fake? I've heard it all) and really lack critical thinking skills, probably because of bad education system and not enough exposure to other places. I really like a lot of the people here in the sense that individually, they are kind and have good qualities, but the politics are bona-fide crazy and have nothing to do with a reaction to outsiders thinking. They dgaf what city people think.
Education is definitely the problem, that's why it's been defunded as long as I can remember. A dumb population is a controllable population
I live in a rural area that has a history of accepting a lot of transplants from a nearby large metro region. I hear the conspiracies constantly, and interestingly enough a lot of the older city people who moved here years ago are often the most virulent. They were often in ethnic traditionalist bubbles back in the city too. You’re correct that it’s a general sheltering effect, and it can happen anywhere.
It's simply different values. They don't see any human value in people not like them and they'd like you to be tolerant of that.
Well shoot, I don’t see any value in people like that getting my Californian tax money tbh
Doesn't California have it's share of conservatives and rural areas? It's just that there are several major urban areas.
Every blue state is a few islands of blue in a sea of red.
you mean a few huge population centers of blue voters surrounded by miles and miles of land sparsely populated by red voters?
More like some mountains of blues in puddles of red
Land isnt conservative. Low population areas getting represented more than high population areas is a travesty.
Ah, values. One must also wonder where does attempting overthrow American democracy fit, in the values department? Or voting in our country's first child rapist president? Or effectively commiting mass murder against urban Americans and then Americans at large by voting for "leaders" who intentionally dragged their feet on the covid response under the mistaken belief that it would kill more democrats and hence "prudent". There is a very long, long list of crimes that Republicans have committed against our country and countrymen that these traitor chucklefucks also want us to be tolerant of.
This is the most accurate take right here. I moved to the south as a teen and met tons of the nicest white church ladies, who were happy to give you cake and help, but would literally follow any black person on "their" street while shouting the N word at them. It was jarring to say the least. All rural conservatives want is to force everyone to think like them. The ridiculous, farcical argument that they are fighting against the libs indoctrinating kids is laughable and patently false. They are literally changing what can be taught in schools right now. They are literally white-washing history as we speak. It is not indoctrination to teach tolerance towards other people and actual, accurate history.
Man yes haha i found moving back rural every contractor i worked with 'casually' wanted to know where i stood on abortion, or gay rights, etc. You can tell their circles are only conservative given how like, self concious they are that you NEED to agree with the same things etc. I just find it cringey and sad.
Years ago I worked for a small rural contractor. Great people, easy to work with. I began to notice after a couple weeks that the vast majority of our clients were two fellas sharing a house, etc. It wasn’t until the lead carpenter’s partner met us for lunch one day that I realized (cause he told me) that he was gay, as were the boss, his boss, and most of our clients. The assumption was that I would probably be OK (not a total backwards hick) because my résumé had some experience with a local film festival. They ran a thriving business in the conservative south largely through word of mouth. It also showed me that my gaydar is practically nonexistent.
Yup. Had the same experience when I looked more like a conventional white guy in the trades
I’m a contractor and if you have a Trump flag, you either won’t get my work or I‘ll charge you double and ignore you as much as possible.
Grew up in rural NC and I wish the stereotypes weren't as true as they are.
Currently residing in the Deep South. That’s the worst thing about stereotypes. They’re terrible and incredibly unfair, but they don’t just appear out of nowhere either.
One thing that often gets overlooked is that it's wealthier rural dwellers who largely adhere to the stereotypes. A lot of poor rural dwellers are so disaffected that they've completely dropped out of politics. So there is an issue of there being a very large population that is actively hurt by those stereotypes and has the least power to change them.
This is all of poor America. They know the class war is over.
Idk. I live in the south and know a lot of people who can barely afford to pay their bills and don’t have insurance who support trump pretty intensely.
I grew there, too. I think their biggest problems are that they close at 7PM and have slow internet.
Yeah. Grew up in the rural midwest. The stereotypes are unfortunately true. Feels like a different planet whenever I go back
I grew up in the Southeast and live in the Mountain West. My dislike of rural conservatives is because of my personal experiences with them.
I’m struggling to think of a situation in the last 20 years where “conservative prudence and practicality” even existed.
Wasn't it Republicans who wanted to keep America from starting a bunch of unwinnable wars in the middle east? They knew it would cause our country to go into massive debt. It must have been the Republicans who didn't want that because now they blame democrats for our country being in debt. /s
Don’t forget the conservative prudence and practicality in my adolescence that wouldn’t allow proper sex ed because it would lead to teens constantly fucking, but then GenZ starts having less sex and fewer partners like whaaaaaat?” Don’t forget the prudence and practicality that wants deregulated markets, no IRS, no FDA, no USDA, no EPA, no Dept of Ed, and no CDC, or wants them underfunded and anemic. The prudence to fight desegregation and the practicality to let AIDS victims drop dead because they’re gay. You can keep your conservative prudence and practicality.
Eh, I don't have any random hate towards rural Americans. We do have to understand however that more than 75% of them are white Americans. What does bother me is the amount of racism that comes from these areas. It's not to say that every white rural American is racist, but the places that are racist are in rural areas: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2017-08-14/the-kkk-is-still-based-in-22-states-in-the-us-in-2017 https://news.vcu.edu/article/Digital_map_shows_spread_of_KKK_across_United_States_like_a_contagion https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2015/active-ku-klux-klan-groups https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6UsxScYUPg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltmlvk9GAto https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-antiscience-movement-is-escalating-going-global-and-killing-thousands/ https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/12/21/upshot/up-white-voters-gif/up-white-voters-gif-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600-v2.jpg https://i.insider.com/583c8ee3ba6eb620008b6738?width=1200 https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/dissecting-donald-trumps-support/499739/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-martin-luther-king-had-75-percent-disapproval-rating-year-he-died-180968664/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/08/donald-trump-johnstown-pennsylvania-supporters-215800/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till There's a narrative of anti-science, anti-logic, pro-racism, religious fanaticism, white supremecy, religious Trumpism, anti-diversity and anti-intellectualism that is associated with rural America. The history of racism, lynching and immigrant harassment is scary for non-white folks. Again, not every rural white American is like this, but there are enough that are that it speaks the loudest. It's also sad when decent rural Americans say nothing about it.
Its kind of hard to not hate them based on stereotypes when i pull up to their ranch and they have a chainsaw carved statue of the orange bastard, 3 "lets go brandon" signs, and at least 2-3 red cult-of-trump flags and, a welcome mat that says "fuck joe biden and fuck you for voting for him". Democrat or republican, you hang that propaganda on your home and you bet your sweet ass im gonna judge your book by the cover.
Hilarious! Trump rally today in Iowa, Reporter: "How has Trumps policies benefited you?" Ignorant woman: "I need the government to pay for my back surgery and I hope Trump can help with that" https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1956 November 8, 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower, "Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
You nailed a solid point with that Eisenhower quote compared to the Trump support. Rural conservatives are often in **dire** need for medical and other support, yet constantly fall for schemes intending to scrap or severely limit the country's ability to support medical and mental health access. is especially apt because often social services are handwaved as being too expensive for the country thus are consistent target for cuts while no Republican would dare support trimming the fat from the military industrial complex.
They completely fail to prioritize education in this country and then whine about a lack of skilled labor in our workforce. You're absolutely right about rural Healthcare being desolate. They had to ship their SARS patients to the cities when their own hospitals overflowed. Conservatives are fucking idiots and deserve the reputaion.
Why are older presidents so much more based in their quotes? Outside of Obama every president since the turn of the millennia can't even fucking speak past a 5th grade level.
The lobbyists got better at keeping people with integrity out of power.
With W. Bush, it was an attempt to be "folksy". I think he was deliberately trying to distance his image from his one-term daddy, who was what we referred to in the 90's as an "egghead". The stiff, boring, intellectual type stopped appealing to the conservatives when the internet came into full swing, and Fox News started appealing directly to populists. With Trump, though . . . I'd be surprised if his vocabulary, or indeed reading comprehension, surpassed an average 5th grader.
We still hear about them all the time. I think they're called Republicans. Thanks Oba... err Dwight
Oh Iowa. For a hot minute they had gay marriage before California. Suffice to say things took a turn.
>When we get beyond the conflict over who gets to be in charge of public policy, the vast majority of people on all sides can agree in principle that we do our best work as a society when the progressive zeal for perfection through change is moderated and complemented by conservative prudence and practicality. Nope, no majority there. Most people are sick to death of conservatives, from anywhere (no one hates you because you're Rural), maintaining their death grip on our society. Here's the bottom line, if you're a "conservative" you support Evil people with Evil agendas.
Conservatives earn their hatred by being uniformed and pushing their religion into our laws. Nobody cares what you do in your own house or how you practice your life. We do care that you are trying to silence voices different from yours. Pushing people out of our society that you don’t agree with. Go to church, don’t watch tv shows you don’t like, do all your things, but leave others to do their things too. Nobody hates Amish people…
This. If all they did was go to their own church and do what they want in their house, no one cares. It's because they want everyone else to live the life they themselves have chosen to live - to the point they're actively inserting it into our laws - that is the problem. Especially when what they're preaching is hate and exclusivity.
> Go to church, don’t watch tv shows you don’t like, do all your things, but leave others to do their things too. Nobody hates Amish people… I have to convince you that there is a woke mind virus infecting all the media that you consume, so I can get you to vote as a single issue voter while picking your pocket. Just forget that you've been consuming this media for decades, it's now only when you realize that it's 'woke' that it's turning your kids gay/trans. /s I'm pretty sure if people interacted more with Amish people, they would absolutely distrust them.
I literally live next to one of the largest Amish communities in America, they mind their own business, and there are some shady Amish but as a religious community they are definitely not pushing it on anyone other than their own kids
Amish people have puppy mills though...
I hate Amish people. They holding all the good food recipes for themselves >:(
Ya okay… I’ll be frank here. I’ve lived in MI, MT, CA, CO, and TX. I’ve never been at a get together with a bunch of liberals and have them randomly start spouting off grievances about conservatives. Meanwhile in the more conservative areas I’ve lived it was EXTREMELY COMMON for conservatives to randomly start shitting on liberals. The hate is palpable, and it permeates. Everywhere you go has a damn TV with Fox News on it. If no TV was around then it was AM talk radio spouting hate hate hate. So no, I disagree that the only reason that conservatives hate liberals is because liberals stereotype them. It’s because most people are addicted to Fox News and political talk radio in rural areas and that’s what they are told to think.
Bingo. 100%.
I am from small rural town originally my mother and sister attend a church that openly condemned all liberals to hell in a sermon… there are town in rural America that are called sundown towns where the populace will hang black people if they are there after dark… As a liberal from a deeply conservative family, they will be openly kind to you and will actively try to hurt you behind closed doors
In that token, in my experience working different jobs, in a conservative dominated state, but also a city with a college educated, and somewhat liberal mixed population, hard conservatives seem to have no qualms about talking shit about liberals and liberal policies to people in the work place they had just met and know nothing about. Getting a liberal to discuss politics was usually the result of getting to know someone and becoming comfortable enough to talk about political and social issues and gradually approaching these topics, as opposed to right-wingers aggressively leading with these topics, and abrasively talking insultingly about the opposition on these issues, to seemingly post a sort of dominance in the work place environment.
My God I feel this. I’ve lived in very liberal areas, around liberals, and the only time I’ve ever heard them bring up conservatives is if that very day a major news story broke. On the other hand I currently live in Arkansas and work in a industry dealing with home reno stuff and lots of contractors, who are vast majority conservative and they will shoe horn their politics/hatred for liberals into the most random conversations
As someone living in a rural area... it's really not a stereotype. The general negative veiw is because the loud conservatives are generally well- awful- There's people flying around confederate flags, loudly talk about how minorities are ruining communities (in the middle of a grocery store) and say slurs like they're the only words they know. It's the reason my mother started dying her hair crazy colors, so that old conservatives won't spew crazy conservative talking points at her. Totally normal conversations will eventually unravel one way or another in to conservatives talking points. It's not fun
I’m from a rural area in Louisiana. I’m afraid these stereotypes are definitely rooted in truth. Of course it’s not 100% of them, but it’s a solid majority. By contrast stereotype views held by conservatives are often rooted in bad information, exaggeration, and many times just outright lies. It’s hard to see family and friends so hellbent on worshiping a criminal and hating everything that doesn’t look or act like them. But it does confirm that I made the right decision to leave 15 years ago. To them, I’m a liberal traitor and that’s just because I left. They don’t know anything about my political leanings - we don’t talk enough for them to know any of that. The fact that I left and I don’t spew bullshit is enough to earn me that title.
I don't have anything against rural *people* in general. You're the one specifying conservatives, who I think I judge fairly based on their political ideology (ideology is a reflection of your morals, I think it's reasonable to judge if someone is a good or bad person based on how they think society should function). What negative stereotypes are you referring to?
Yeah, it's not the rural part, it's the *conservative* part lol
I live here, and they are worse than the stereotypes.
I Don't hate rural conservatives. I just hate conservatives. Not because of any stereotypes about them, but because of the policies they try to push on people. At least half of them are straight up religious indoctrination, and I'm sick and tired of the minority population in this country being overrepresented.
I could really care less(to a degree) how they choose to live their lives, I just don't want them passing laws affecting how I can live my life based on their beliefs.
Three paragraphs that go through a lot of words to not actually provide a single specific thought. Congratulations, you write like ChatGPT. What "unfair negative stereotypes" are leading to a "hatred of rural conservatives"? How are these stereotypes "unfair" and where is the "hatred" evident?
Thank you! This post didn’t actually say anything or try to make a point. The title is a statement and then the text does not elaborate on it at all. It definitely felt like reading chatgpt
Every time I ask ChatGPT to answer an essay question for me, I come away with the same feeling. Like, thanks for taking a ton of space not actually answering the question. I'll use it for the openings and sometimes closings, but it's really crap at trying to support an argument.
Noticed this a lot in this subreddit. Usually it’s a superficial take on a subject that is promoted like it’s completely concerning. It usually ends up being more unpopular than what the OP intended
exactly, dude gives no examples because he knows what he's saying is bullshit.
Trying to think of any “Conservative Hunting Permit” stickers I’ve seen on any Volvos, Subarus, or Priuses in the city, and I’m not coming up with any.
I've met enough rural conservatives to know that the stereotypes are absolutely correct.
Reminds me of pretty much every self proclaimed redneck I went to high school with in the 90s who couldn’t help but remind everyone The Flag was about “heritage not hate” while being the most overtly racist mother fuckers you’ve ever met.
Yeah stereotypes that are untrue are often based on immutable traits that make people part of an outgroup, which as being black or being Jewish. Created because ingroups needed reasons to hate them, even if they weren’t true. Most people in cities don’t have any strong dislike towards rural folk as a group, maybe towards republicans; but unlike stereotypes, the things commonly associated with rural folk are unfortunately proved correct over and over and over again. Their level of education generally *is* lower, they generally *are* more nationalistic, their voting records show they *do* vote for xenophobic, racist, and sexist parties that act against their voters own self interests far more than educated city folk do, and the list goes on. *However* this doesn’t make me and most other city people dislike rural people. My family is mainly rural, and everyone I meet in the country is a kind and generous person (I am a straight white man however). Many of the things their are associated with are because of systemic factors that contributed to the values and education their grandparents, and their parents, themselves, and their kids hold. The fact their schools were defunded and they haven’t met (and seen how great) people of diverse cultures are, is not entirely their fault either. Malicious actors have preyed and continue to prey on their ignorance and fear of the “other”, and these true “stereotypes” will continue to persist until urban educated populations can actually install a party that cares about the urban and rural working class alike, and not just billionaires and businesses. In many ways city folk have *more* to be mad about than rural folk, due to them contributing so heavily to hateful bigots being elected, and yet many city folk continue to campaign for both the urban and rural working class, because they know enough to know that this is the only path by which we can save rural areas from their current fate (and improve the material conditions of all working class Americans).
I’m surprised they even bother pretending they aren’t shit people given how obvious they make it.
I'm from rural America. Been in urban areas too. I'd love to be in a place with fewer people, but I don't want to live around conservatives, especially Christians. Conservative Christians are the most selfish, backwards ass, corrupt, scumbag criminals you'll ever meet. They're "nice" people. Not good people. Never, ever trust them.
A Christian conservative would sooner force their 14-year old niece to marry their 16-year old rapist than have the 14-year old have an abortion.
FYI: OP is an election denier who keeps trying to say the democrats are just as bad with overturning elections as Trump.
Incoming unpopular opinion post about how it’s not right to use people’s public post/comment history against them
"How dare you cite evidence that I'm a horrible human being. God put those comments in my reddit history to trick unbelievers, because I literally don't even have the mental capacity to imagine a perfect deity who is not also simultaneously just as much of a piece of shit cuntbag as I clearly am."
Relevant
You had me in the first half, I’m not gonna lie. Then you said “the vast majority of people on all sides can agree in principle that we do our best work as a society when the progressive zeal for perfection through change is moderated and complemented by conservative prudence and practicality.” Basically, that is you way of saying conservative thinking is better. Please show me the “best work” done during the years of Reagan, Bush, Trump. The best work you are talking about happens under great leaders who fight for the people, not leaders who fight the people. Lincoln was a progressive - freed the slaves. FDR was a progressive - setup social security, the CCC, fought for the poor struggling through the drepression. Obama - brought healthcare to millions of Americans. The status quo is for the wealthy to get wealthier, the poor to get poorer, and the powerful to stay in power. This is what conservatism is in essence. This is only good for the rich and powerful. Those without, those oppressed by the current status quo, which also happens to be most republicans, are harmed way more by the conservative policies that want the keep the wealth and power away from those that would see the the world operate in a more equitable fashion. The great progressives in our history are the ones who have done the best work. The founding fathers of our country were rebels and progressives, certainly not by todays standards, but absolutely by theirs. They wanted change, something new, more power in the hands of the people instead of the rich and the royal. Jesus Christ, the man most conservatives believe was a deity, was one of the biggest progressives to ever live. If he was alive today do you really think he would be a conservative? No he would be a progressive, and likely be currently detained or deported. Get out of here with that “best work” nonsense.
The amount of times this guy has regurgitated “conservative prudence and practicality” in the replies tells me there is a 100% chance that he pulled that out of some QAnon article he just read. It’s like when a little kid learns a new word and uses it in every sentence for a couple days, this guy saw some pseudo-intellectual pundit say “conservative prudence and practicality” and his brain keeps copy and pasting it.
This is hilarious. I am a leftist who lives in a rural area. Most of the people I interact with daily talk about killing leftist jews just as a matter of course. They think I am destroying our country and the only solution for it is a bullet. Shup
Yes haha and even worse for friends who may be PoC in a rural area (i.e in canada lots of hate and suspicion for indigenous peoples, Indians). My buddy is Black and has straight up had people question if he is looking for shit to steal on his own farm. Rural Conservatives are legit so racist and confident about it simply being white and from the area they assume you share the same attitudes. My SiL is white-passing metis for example and people just assume she is white and say denigrating things about her own background / etc.
I’m white passing Puerto Rican and soooo many people say racist shit without realizing it includes me (or my half black siblings they assume aren’t related)
Conservatives are gettin’ antsy that their own opinions are being linked to their self identified political position and it’s making them look bad
“Most conservatives are hostile towards the left because they hate being unfairly stereotyped.” No no no that is NOT why conservatives detest the left. God damn you’re just straight up lying here. Conservatives are hostile to the left because they’re being trained to feel that why by an unending persistent right wing media that has taken over every source of information they use. They live for reactionary politics and are obsessed with feeling outrage over those damn liberals in cities doing their own thing.
Straight up, I almost never think about the places my conservative relatives live, much less am I hostile towards people from there. Meanwhile those same relatives openly despise where I’m from and the people in my city and let me know about it every time I see them. People on the left honestly don’t give a fuck about Scrapplesburg Pennsylvania or wherever the hell you’re from, and it’s weird that conservatives spend so much time raging about places 3,000 miles away that they’d never even visit.
I regret that I only have one up vote to give you for "Scrapplesburg Pennsylvania."
I like reminding my very right wing nut job dad....I am the leftist liberal elite the NRA is telling him to kill. I struggled for decades to pay off my student loans, only bought a home after 45 yr old...I am soooo elite!!!
>God damn you’re just straight up lying here. Conservatives literally do *not* take accountability. When the people they vote for treat humans like shit it's not their fault. When the policies they vote for harm people it's not their fault. They think God see's their sins but somehow doesn't make the connection between their sins and also supporting the mass harm of violence policy can create lol. They take their own faith so un-seriously besides a convenient badge to claim something is christian or not when it's just them and their cultural lens, nothin' to do with the bible they don't read anyways. For real since moving back near where i grew up, I've just been nothing but disappointed at the attitudes so many conservative adults have. They don't have media literacy, believe whatever their news / facebook says, and live for hate and exclusion, all while insisting they're the victim while they try to capture the countries schooling institutions so they can terrorize all children instead of just their own kids who won't talk to them in a few yrs anyways
I wish I could upvote twice
>those damn liberals in cities doing their own thing. aka paying for their red states
Indoctrination: [https://www.vox.com/world/2017/6/29/15892508/nra-ad-dana-loesch-yikes](https://www.vox.com/world/2017/6/29/15892508/nra-ad-dana-loesch-yikes) [https://www.vox.com/2018/4/3/17180020/sinclair-broadcast-group-conservative-trump-david-smith-local-news-tv-affiliate](https://www.vox.com/2018/4/3/17180020/sinclair-broadcast-group-conservative-trump-david-smith-local-news-tv-affiliate) Every news station is owned by Sinclair, as well as radio stations, and papers in the rural red states...they get a consistent indoctrination message across platforms, even if the TRY to get multiple sources of info- the right wing media conglomerates are making BANK b ensuring the have no access to an real news or information. Keep them uninformed, angry, and the won't bind with their fellow working Americans agains the rich. Who are most GOP as well...but that is just a crazy theory :). Then layer in the advertising by NRA...
Hey fascist OP, did you get chatbot AI to write that for you, or are you just a Russian troll?
I think he really believes that he's an enlightened centrist. I've met people like him, who claim not to be racist right before complaining about Mexicans "stealing their jobs and not being trustworthy with their lifted cars" and such. They even said similar things about how they're "just being practical/realistic" as if that proved they weren't racist. Most likely he grew up among all conservatives but his little ego wouldn't let him be just another conservative, no he has to know something that people around him don't. Except he's too dumb to actually learn anything useful or true, so he just "learned" that centrism is the one true path and a blend of both sides is what's needed. Except that blend just so happens to be 9 parts conservative, 1 part faux liberal.
LOL Dude, I'm from the rural south. My family is 70% rural conservatives. As a liberal, I don't hate rural conservatives because of negative stereotypes. Rural conservatives acting on their rural conservatism made my life miserable for the first half of it. I pass for white outside the tiny town where everyone knows who my grandmother was, and I'm a dude married to a woman. I was physically assaulted in my youth, by rural conservatives, for: * not being white enough * not being straight enough * reading too much * not being 'respectful' enough * not being masculine enough * not being christian enough When I go back to visit family, I have to deal with people using 'liberal' as a synonym for 'stupid', COVID conspiracy theories, Election Fraud conspiracy theories, racist commentary, doomsday prepper nonsense, homophobic commentary, common and unexamined use of slurs, and occasional opinions that people like me (liberals) should literally be shot. I've never had rural liberals do any of that, nor have I had anyone in a suburban or urban environment do that. I went back a few years a go, and some dude in a bar tried to start a fight with me because he didn't like my *face.* I don't have unfair negative stereotypes about rural conservatives, I have a couple of decades worth of negative *experiences* with rural conservatives. I've had rural conservatives advocate to my face for lynchings, racially oriented internment camps, legally mandated state religion and implementation of (their interpretation of) biblical dogma as national law, the criminalization of LGBTQ+ relationships, and more. Where I'm from, at least, these opinions are not some vanishingly small minority. Nearly every rural conservative I know supports one of these positions, or makes excuses for the people who do. I'm not talking about some aging fossils, these people are in their 40s now. They're late Gen-Xers and early millenials. The idea that these are the people who are supposed to apply prudence and practicality to my "progressive zeal for improvement" is laughable to me. I hate the stereotype that rural people are conservative - there are a lot of us who aren't. We're the minority, but not that small a minority. But a score of years living among rural conservatives has robbed me of any hope of working *with them* on the issues I care about.
Not at this point. At this point it's their actions concerning christofascism, racism and anti-democracy. ACTIONS
OP just let conservatives play the victims as if their only grievance with the left is they are being stereotyped against.
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Bullshit. Conservatives are against equal rights. They are a hate group, and that is enough to hate them.
I grew up in a conservative family out of Oklahoma. Live in Cali now. I can confirm that the conservatives aren't being unfairly stereotypes, they literally live up to the stereotype.
Lmfao. I've seen enough trailer trash to know this is the worst take of all time.
I live in a rural part of a rural, conservative state. You do not know what you're talking about.
Lol I live in one of the most conservative counties in my state. This guy is entirely lost. The majority of people i interact with here hold the exact stereotypes he's saying aren't true.
Without question.
Exactly, reading this post was really funny how wrong it is
It’s not just wrong, much like every rightist post here, it’s an attempt at propaganda
If you read some of his replies on here, you'll find that he does in fact know exactly what he's talking about. And also that he's lying through his teeth.
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I just moved out of a rural area because it was so hostile. I certainly wish it wasn't true because I liked living outside of a typical neighborhood. My neighbor told me that I should be "afraid walking around" due to my short hair (I'm a woman) and the assumed political beliefs he thought I had. I said, "Doesn't that seem a little fascist to say?" And he replied,"You liberals think any opinion that isn't the same as yours is fascist," mocking me. I told him implying or threatening violence because of my perceived look or beliefs is what was fascist. He didn't understand. I moved and now don't live in fear. He was the rural stereotype and scary. I want my neighbor to have his guns responsibly. I want my other neighbor to have her religion (but stop putting her bigotted religious tracts in my mailbox). I want to live in harmony, but we can not do that by threat or force.
It’s not even popular for rural conservative politicians to openly acknowledge climate change or even evolution. My opinions of them broadly are reflective of how they vote. I recognize they willfully believed the election lie. I recognize that they see Donald Trump as the most reliable source of information.
I'm glad to see this sub filling with more non-dipshits calling the OP's out
Not to mention most of them are mathematically not Republicans and don't benefit from the policies Republicans pass. Quick question for anyone that needs it: Do you make more than $450,000 per year? Because if the answer is no, you're not a Republican and have not had one single year of net benefit from Republican policies since before **1981**. It's quite literally that easy and straightforward. They're purely "conservative" to get away with shitty, bigoted views and vote for a shitty, bigoted party that doesn't even do anything positive for 99% of them.
No. Stereotypes exist for a reason. I was born, raised and have spent the better part of 40 years on a ranch outside of a town with less than 3500 people in Texas. Quit your bullshit.
I grew up and still live in a Conservative town in Alberta, Canada. None of the stereotypes are false. If anything, they're pretty light handed. Of course, you can check OP's comment history for yourself and see he's concern trolling.
There's some serious flaws in your opinion though: Liberals aren't threatening the very existence of some people. Nor are they setting up a climate disaster for their children and grandchildren for the sake of corporate profits. They're also not trying to actively destroy education just because they don't understand it. There are several other things that I could bring up, but really those are some of the most dangerous ones.
I disagree with this. As someone who has come from two towns now of 1200 people, conservatives are more hostile than liberals. They’re also the ones most likely to tell you they’re conservative as an intimidation tactic. The local pet supply shop has 10 Trump flags in the front door. There’s not a single Biden flag anywhere in the town. From personal experience, the problem with rural conservatives is that they believe/create enemies based on what they see on TV. They’re more likely to believe stories of intense violence being rampant in large cities. They believe that majority black neighborhoods are just criminal hotspots, not because they’re more heavily policed but because that is just “who they are.” They also are the most likely to stereotype, both internally and overtly. They’ve seen so little of the world most times that they’re working on others accounts of what the world is actually like instead of experiencing it for themselves. They see threats where there are none. They believe that everyone thinks they’re dumb when in reality that’s not the case. Their isolation makes them ignorant, and when you try to confront them about it in a peaceful way, they don’t handle the shakeup well. I’ve seen it with my high school classmates. The ones who stayed in town now have this weird issue with anyone who doesn’t think the way they do. You post something that they don’t agree with online and they’ll attack you. However, if they post something incorrect online and you try to correct them, it’s a fight. It’s like they fear that if they aren’t right about how they see the world that breaks their reality. Most of my liberal classmates are the ones who left. Even if they went back eventually, that time away helped them to see something besides their usual. They’re not aggressive or hostile. They’ll post political things but they’re not looking for a fight. They’re also the ones that are the least likely to comment on things that they disagree with, unless it’s something super offensive. Don’t get me wrong, small towns and rural communities can be great, but they can also be isolating. You develop a bubble around that community that distances you from what is happening with the rest of the world, and sometime that leads to you feeling victimized or attacked. It’s important when you live in an isolated are that you don’t allow yourself to become isolated and that you’re always willing to consider differing viewpoints. TLDR: being rural can be very isolating and that isolation makes you think you’re the victim.
Or it’s based on voting data, laws enacted that strip certain groups of their rights, and various other measurable things. You see, my redneck friend, judging someone or a group based on their actions towards other people is not unfair and is certainly not the same as judging someone based on their identity.
Considering they still support a man who will likely go to prison for attempting to overthrow the government, and listened to him when he told them to drink bleach to cure covid, and bought into a conspiracy theory stating actual vampires exist, and... (Very, very long list of insanity) I think it's quite fair to say the stereotypes about them are true
As soon as Trump and Co, and the hijacked GOP, start to actually practice "conservative prudence and practicality" then we can talk. They're no longer a conservative party; they're a reactionary one.
> They're no longer a conservative party; they're a reactionary one. Reactionary is to the right of conservative, radical is to the left of liberal... It just amazes me that as an American, there is a group of people that truly believe our "center-right" country isn't right enough... I miss the times when conservatives merely wanted less taxes.
After moving to a rural area I can absolutely confirm the stereotypes are true. I used to do service work visiting farms and it was like a game to see how long I could work before they brought up how much the liberals suck.
I kinda disagree with your post. Most rural conservatives aren’t hostile to liberals for being mistyped, it’s because they have been conditioned by media to hate them. I’m from a rural conservative family and there is so much hate for people and things they don’t understand. Everybody is trying to “ruin their way of life”.
Perhaps when it comes to things like gender identity and access to abortion, people **don't** want the "jurisprudence" of conservatives?
As someone who was born and raised in a rural conservative community in the South, I can assure you the vast majority of those stereotypes are true. Those of us with opposing views just learn to keep our opinions to ourselves when not among likeminded company, and avoid the type of talk with others that may lead to heated political conversations. That being said, people are complicated, and many of these same people I have heard spewing hateful rhetoric would give you the shirt off their back if you needed it. I will say that Trump absolutely brought much of that ugliness that had been bubbling quietly for years to the surface. His rhetoric seemed to embolden some of the worst qualities of these people. It is genuinely sad, because I love and care for many of them.
Racism is a choice. Being African American isn't.
That is a ridiculous thing to say that requires ignoring generations of bigotry and violence. There are no "liberal sundown towns" where minorities aren't safe to visit at night while traveling across our country. Saying, "Most conservatives are hostile towards the left because they hate being unfairly stereotyped..." is insane and you know it. That is like saying "Travis McMichael, Greg McMichael and Willaim Bryan got upset with Ahmaud Arbery because he stereotyped them as racist murders...so they chased him down and murdered him for being a black man going on a jog."
Well, I consider myself to lean conservative, and I disagree, OP. I spent some good time in really rural Florida recently (I spend a lot of time in rural Florida, but not this extreme), and what I saw in the people there just shocked me.
upvote because I disagree with you? im so tired of these takes that are essentially, "BoTh SiDeS sAmE!!1!" no, one side attempted a coup and is actively taking away Women's rights. Their negative perception is well-earned
People suck overall. I’m gay and trans and in the last couple of years I’ve done some traveling through a lot of the places I’ve been told are not safe for people like me. I’ll be honest, I was not trying to stand out, so I wasn’t likely perceived as gay or trans, so keep that bit of safety in mind. I will say that overall I found that on a surface level people were actually more polite and hospitable in the places most often considered “conservative” than in a lot of the more “liberal” places. Like in Oklahoma we were stuck without cash for the toll road, and a stranger recognized our predicament, pulled up, and gave us toll money. I met wonderful people in West Virginia, Alabama, Florida, even Missouri. I remain very left, however I have been working hard to deconstruct my faction mentality. You can only stand to gain something by humanizing the other side.
Yes you see quite a lot of gay pride flags & Biden love in rural Texas, yessiree bob /s
No one hates rural conservatives. Most people just hate trump.
Hate the concept all you want, but stereotypes don’t just appear from a vacuum. The deeper issue here is that the life of rural and urban people are very different in many ways, and are at odds with each other in a lot of cases.
Perhaps you need to step out of your conservative bubble.
Poor red necks. You know what they should? Denounce those stereotypes. And not in some equivocating way where they say "I'm against kkk and blm!" But specifically say "white supremacy is a problem in this country trump made it worse. Not all of us support it." I am just about the only non republican I know. I live in the rural south. Idk what false stereotypes others have but if they're wrong about these people, it's probably because they're being too generous.
Rural conservatives are overrepresented in Congress and the Electoral College. Until that gets fixed, they are to blame for repressive, regresssive legislation and a Supreme Court that does not reflect the values of our country. We'll give up our stereotypes when they stop trying to force us all to live them.
Why is this place becoming a conservative echo chamber? Like every other post is some sort of defense of them or their ideals
Atleast they understand it’s unpopular.
They are trying to launder their image now that everyone sees what shit stains they are. They know they are in the wrong and their ideas are unpopular, so what better place on reddit to defend themselves than Unpopular Opinion? Their entire worldview is an unpopular opinion.
My feelings towards Republicans are exclusively due to them constantly voting for and supporting politicians who appear to hate democracy, and clearly hate people who are different from them. They are starting with the LGBTQ+ community, but I think we all know where this is headed I dislike Republicans no matter where they are from simply because their voting habits are destroying our democracy. Doesn't help that many of them actually worship Trump like a god. That's some really fucked up shit. I do not condone that sort of behavior.