I'm from a former logging town in Oregon. The town is rural and deeply conservative, but definitely not poor. Almost exactly median household income. 90% white. Not sure if it's exactly the locale your asking about but a few thoughts anyways:
The point about racism is correct. Nobody's like, in the Klan, and most people had the tact to keep it to themselves unless they trusted you or got even a little bit drunk. But once it got out, it got out, especially in years when race issues were in the news. In pretty much any gather of hicks, I'd say about a third of them are vocally white supremacist after a few drinks. Lots of grievances about black people taking their welfare and committing crime. A lot of the rest of them think simultaneously that racism is wrong and that there's genetic differences between races. I was taught in elementary school, for example, that black people have denser bones and more ligaments in their arms in legs than white people --which is why they can run fast but can't swim well--, but that we should treat others like equals anyways.
"Avarice, fear, and hatred" does a good enough job of describing their feelings toward the future. They're pretty much always scared shitless of whatever boogeyman is on the news. The big one right now is that Antifa is starting the wildfires. Every conservative from my hometown that I know believes this. Every single one. I do not know of a single conservative who isn't afraid that Portlanders are going to come to their house and light them on fire. When I was at my brother's house a few days ago, two cars parked in public parking across the street from him. He got his gun set up and took his huge dog to go check them out to make sure they weren't antifa terrorists.
Even when there aren't real and serious natural disasters threatening their lives and homes, anxiety over change is a big part of the psyche. Driving downtown and seeing someone who had like, idk, died hair or a shirt from a metal band would elicit "God, you wouldn't have seen any of these freaks here back in the day" from the passenger seat. A lot of anger directed towards Portland, liberals, and the Democratic party, too. Like, if you think that internet leftists are wild because we make guillotine jokes sometimes, you don't even know. It's definitely gotten worse since the internet, but I really try not to spend time either in my hometown or on Facebook, so I don't really know the extent of it.
Rural conservatives are not sleeper communists. They despise the idea of the state doing anything to help poor people, and a ton of them want to be rich business owners. The Wright quote about temporarily embarrassed millionaires rings true, to the point where I've called people that and they agreed with it. That being said, there's a big split between pro and anti-union attitudes, with older people tending to think union workers are lazy and younger folks tending to see unions as one of the last opportunities to make a living through work. They also have a soft spot for an outsider, and plenty of some of the most conservative people I know were willing to give Bernie and Yang's ideas a shot just because they're a break from the mainstream. I wonder if some kind of union/ ODOT worker to leftist pipeline could work.
Kind of off topic, but the culture is really weirdly artificial and imported? A lot of dudes driving pickup trucks to their office jobs in Portland. I remember in high school kids would develop drawls after listening to country music. Had someone tell me to my face that "round these parts we call it a crick" after I said creek, even though that's absolutely 100% not part of the dialect. Kids who lived in town would come in wearing cowboy hats. I remember watching the scene from Mean Girls where they discuss what days of the week they would coordinate their outfits play out in real life, except it was a group of 17 year old dudes discussing when they would wear their new Carhartts and Romeos together. Lots of confederate flags, even though the state was never part of the confederacy. The aesthetics and culture of "The Country" as an abstract was more in the forefront than our geography or logging history. Cowboys were cool, lumberjacks and fur trappers were not.
In reference to number 2, the fear of loss of status is the essence of the petit bourgeois mindset. They are afforded many comforts but not the safety of wealth. Rich people aren't scared of getting kicked out of their house, and poor people don't have a house to begin with. The petit bourgeois and labor aristocrats are more protective because they feel besieged on both sides, from the poor coming to steal from them and the rich coming to exploit them or screw them over. Except they know they can't punish the rich and that they will get away with it. So they fight the poor. They base their lives on fearing the underclass. They fear the rich like they fear God; with a perverse underlying respect. Their fear of the poor is turned into a visceral hatred of them and you get the modern chud.
I moved out west recently and the more I learn about Oregon the more and more it seems batshit insane. It’s literally the Wild West with modern politics.
I'm from a former logging town in Oregon. The town is rural and deeply conservative, but definitely not poor. Almost exactly median household income. 90% white. Not sure if it's exactly the locale your asking about but a few thoughts anyways:
The point about racism is correct. Nobody's like, in the Klan, and most people had the tact to keep it to themselves unless they trusted you or got even a little bit drunk. But once it got out, it got out, especially in years when race issues were in the news. In pretty much any gather of hicks, I'd say about a third of them are vocally white supremacist after a few drinks. Lots of grievances about black people taking their welfare and committing crime. A lot of the rest of them think simultaneously that racism is wrong and that there's genetic differences between races. I was taught in elementary school, for example, that black people have denser bones and more ligaments in their arms in legs than white people --which is why they can run fast but can't swim well--, but that we should treat others like equals anyways.
"Avarice, fear, and hatred" does a good enough job of describing their feelings toward the future. They're pretty much always scared shitless of whatever boogeyman is on the news. The big one right now is that Antifa is starting the wildfires. Every conservative from my hometown that I know believes this. Every single one. I do not know of a single conservative who isn't afraid that Portlanders are going to come to their house and light them on fire. When I was at my brother's house a few days ago, two cars parked in public parking across the street from him. He got his gun set up and took his huge dog to go check them out to make sure they weren't antifa terrorists. Even when there aren't real and serious natural disasters threatening their lives and homes, anxiety over change is a big part of the psyche. Driving downtown and seeing someone who had like, idk, died hair or a shirt from a metal band would elicit "God, you wouldn't have seen any of these freaks here back in the day" from the passenger seat. A lot of anger directed towards Portland, liberals, and the Democratic party, too. Like, if you think that internet leftists are wild because we make guillotine jokes sometimes, you don't even know. It's definitely gotten worse since the internet, but I really try not to spend time either in my hometown or on Facebook, so I don't really know the extent of it.
Rural conservatives are not sleeper communists. They despise the idea of the state doing anything to help poor people, and a ton of them want to be rich business owners. The Wright quote about temporarily embarrassed millionaires rings true, to the point where I've called people that and they agreed with it. That being said, there's a big split between pro and anti-union attitudes, with older people tending to think union workers are lazy and younger folks tending to see unions as one of the last opportunities to make a living through work. They also have a soft spot for an outsider, and plenty of some of the most conservative people I know were willing to give Bernie and Yang's ideas a shot just because they're a break from the mainstream. I wonder if some kind of union/ ODOT worker to leftist pipeline could work.
Kind of off topic, but the culture is really weirdly artificial and imported? A lot of dudes driving pickup trucks to their office jobs in Portland. I remember in high school kids would develop drawls after listening to country music. Had someone tell me to my face that "round these parts we call it a crick" after I said creek, even though that's absolutely 100% not part of the dialect. Kids who lived in town would come in wearing cowboy hats. I remember watching the scene from Mean Girls where they discuss what days of the week they would coordinate their outfits play out in real life, except it was a group of 17 year old dudes discussing when they would wear their new Carhartts and Romeos together. Lots of confederate flags, even though the state was never part of the confederacy. The aesthetics and culture of "The Country" as an abstract was more in the forefront than our geography or logging history. Cowboys were cool, lumberjacks and fur trappers were not.
Wait... You guys are joking?
Get out by La Grande/Wallowa/Enterprise area, and I don't think you even need the few drinks.
In reference to number 2, the fear of loss of status is the essence of the petit bourgeois mindset. They are afforded many comforts but not the safety of wealth. Rich people aren't scared of getting kicked out of their house, and poor people don't have a house to begin with. The petit bourgeois and labor aristocrats are more protective because they feel besieged on both sides, from the poor coming to steal from them and the rich coming to exploit them or screw them over. Except they know they can't punish the rich and that they will get away with it. So they fight the poor. They base their lives on fearing the underclass. They fear the rich like they fear God; with a perverse underlying respect. Their fear of the poor is turned into a visceral hatred of them and you get the modern chud.
I moved out west recently and the more I learn about Oregon the more and more it seems batshit insane. It’s literally the Wild West with modern politics.