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more similarity between Western Canada and Western US than between Western US and Eastern US …
Isn't most of of Western Canada like the US South (Alberta = Texas), BC is like Washington/Oregon, maybe California?
So here’s the thing. The whole west coast of NA, including california, oregon, washington, and BC are considered to be super liberal areas. This is true by a majority of the population, but all of these regions are still filled with people who are as conservative as any other rural area in the US. It’s just that in those regions, more people populate the large cities than the rural areas.
Really, conservatism reigns in poorer, less educated, and more isolated regions with low population and without diversity, where tribalism can run rampant; it’s easy to be a racist shitbag if you barely meet anyone with a different skin color than you. Liberalism thrives in regions with diverse populations where in order to live we have to cooperate with others.
I live in Portland, Oregon. People tend to think oregon is a blue state wonderland (except during covid and the floyd protests. then apparently the whole city was on fire and in a state of complete anarchy; spoiler— it totally wasn’t). That’s not the case. We just have enough people in large cities to outnumber the racist cuntballoons in the rural areas. And that’s what the whole west coast is like (and basically every “blue state” in the US)
Western Canada is a lot like western USA. Filled with shart-gargling racists/homophobes/transphobes, but outnumbered by people who aren’t pieces of shit.
west coast (and especially PNW) culture is just “we kinda outnumber them slightly”, but the overall issue comes down to: in rural/conservative areas, it’s easy to be racist/homophobic/transphobic/other-religions-phobic, because you never have to consider anyone’s feelings that hurt your worldview because you don’t know them personally and do not consider them to be human on the same level as you.
I like how you casually equated conservatives with being a racist shitbag.
I’m sure you’ve developed your “rural people are racist shitbags” concept from all the small, sub-dunbar communities you’ve visited in your extensive survey of US culture.
As everyone knows, tribalism survives best in areas where everyone knows each other, and fails in big cities of millions. Because having strangers surrounding you every day makes the tribalism go away.
Coastal BC west of the cascades is very similar to Puget Sound region and Portland. Anywhere east of Whistler and Chilliwack is much more rural religious and conservative, similar to central and eastern Washington. Another cultural oddity about inland BC - Kelowna and Kamloops have some of the most violent and active Hells Angels chapters.
(Alberta and Texas are central plains / central prairies / “midwest” – calling Texas western is a bit of a misnomer, the US decided that anything west of the Mississippi is the “Great West”)
Alberta seems a lot more like Texas culturally and economically and also politically