Sounds like poor white and poor black Americans face fairly similar issues.
> “Traditional” upbringing, often religious based, that breed skepticism toward anything “foreign” - which means everything from non-white people to AirBnB.
The xenophobia of rural whites is vastly oversold. I've never heard of anyone around here afraid of AirBnB. The level of racism I've seen in white communities is on par with the level I've seen in black communities. Which is to say that there's an undercurrent, but not a hysteria.
> A fear that Washington DC really is a threat to their freedoms.
Do urban Americans really not feel this way? It certainly seemed otherwise during the summer of surveillance.
> For example, there is a view that gun laws aren’t really about guns, so much as a perception of a slippery slope toward totalitarianism.
It's not that gun laws aren't about guns. It's that the rights of citizens to defend themselves against a tyrannical government _should one arise_ is important enough to be included in our Bill of Rights. I still don't understand how those who believe that our current president is a totalitarian monster can't sympathize.