I find it's the case everywhere these days. Data would tend to agree. People are quick to dismiss, critique, fight. Good people I know have some to see every disagreement as a personal challenge.
People are unsettled, emboldened, concerned, angry, lost and in desperate need of worthy leaders.
@walabby Here's the lowdown on America. The reality. Most big cities are where the Democrats can be found. That leaves an enormous portion of the country that always has been solidly red.
It's also true that most Americans aren't nearly as educated as they think they are. Only 39% have a college degree. About 14% have an advanced degree. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/184260/educational-attainment-in-the-us/#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20about%2037.9%20percent,population%20had%20graduated%20from%20college, US census.gov)
Additionally, we are uber-conservative in terms of faith. 85% of citizens identify with a conservative faith (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/political-ideology/conservative/) We are a nation not of free-minded, diversity-loving folk but come instead from the Puritan ethic, exclusive, extremally conservatives and critical of the outside world.
Americans are terrified people. They fear failure, embarrassment, success, change and new ideas. To guard against all this, they practice the principle of terminal uniqueness, the belief that they are so, singular, so unknown, so unprecedented that no other laws which apply to other nations could possibly apply to them.
What they seek is reassurance, magical cures, quick fixes and power. Above all else, power, because power is a worthy substitute for character. Anyone coming along who can sell their particular brand of snake oil can slip right in and make a killing. And should the people lose the taste for it, they'll simply run the act out of town. But by next summer they will have forgotten they were ever hoodwinked before.
