Just like this piece on a small town in Minnesota:
Even in places where they are nowhere close to being in the minority, they find the presence of people who are different to be intolerable, and take it as a sign that their way of life is ending.
FTA:
“There are a lot of people coming through that I don’t recognize,” said Terri Collins, Benson’s cheerful mayor, whose family has been in Benson for five generations. “I used to know all of my neighbors and now that’s different. And I don’t know what to blame for that.”
The idea that something/someone must be blamed because lives of the townfolk haven’t continued like some unchanging version of the movie Pleasantville is chilling.
According to that AP article, it was the election of Obama that started them down the slippery slope, along with gay marriage and “identity politics.” They’re described like people drowning in a sea of strange, new ideas - so they clung to 45 like a life preserver. However, there’s nothing new about any of the racism, homophobia, antisemitism, intolerance, or violence they embrace when things don’t go their way. This is why they have a vested interest in revisionist history and hiding the truth from the next generation.
