You know, if you had substituted "Coastal Elites" for "Westerners" in the first paragraph, then I would have sworn you were writing from the perspective of a pe

You know, if you had substituted "Coastal Elites" for "Westerners" in the first paragraph, then I would have sworn you were writing from the perspective of a person from Appalachia or the South. So safe to say, that sentiment you feel really is shared in some way by many rural Americans, and hopefully, some empathy might even go both ways in many cases. You are hitting into a salient point I think though. What point do these tropes actually serve? Make people from other cultures conform out of shame? Or is it purely to make the people perpetuating these standards to feel superior?