Heartland Values

Via tengrain: a Midwesterner makes some points to the insularity of his Trump-voting hometown, with its fear of people they've never encountered. Patrick Thornton says of his hometown, and the like—

I'm from the rural midwest. All of this talk about coastal elites needing to understand more of America has it backwards.

My home county is 97% white. It like a lot of other very unrepresentative counties went heavily to Donald Trump.

My high school had about 1,200 students. Two were Asian. One was Hispanic. Zero were Muslim. All the teachers were white.
...
Many rural Americans have isolated themselves from the rest of the country. They live in very unrepresentative areas.
...
Here it is in sharp relief: My HS had more sexual predator teachers (convicted!) than minority teachers. That's a rural American story.