I can empathize. As an early teen, my family moved from a major US city to the rural midwest which is filled with "blue collar born and bred Americans." I was immediately bombarded with a strict Christian and puritan-like culture in high school. I grew up in a Catholic household but I had never experienced the intensity of a group of kids following their parents upbringing to a tee. They hated anyone who had longer hair and didn't play football and didn't go to church on Sunday. It may sound like a caricature but I immediately asked my parents to change schools. It never happened. I experienced a tough four years of high school because I liked alternative music and dance music like techno. I never made long lasting friendships during that era. Over 20 years later and I can't shake the uneasy feeling that seemingly well-intentioned people seek to eradicate uniqueness in humanity. I've been to plenty of those homes with parents who would greet me with polite words, but I could sense the dichotomy of distaste and good Christianity sensibility.

I never considered myself politically active during that era. I chalked it up to the country mindset. But, since then I've witnessed the rise of their hatred powered by the systems many of us built – social networks and similar technologies. I don't believe either of the two major political parties represent my ideologies and ethics. Instead, I find them both to be trapped in a game of showmanship while wrestling for control of a great nation. Seemingly non-1% citizens loose rights, freedoms, and opportunities to grow as persons. The majority of my high school peers never left their birth town and simply perpetuated the farce taught them in early in youth. The farce being that they own something of America to greater degree than anyone else and that their government owes them everything, but they want to exist without regulation or taxation...and any non-white non-christian non-rural humans. I still can't wrap my head around their logic and I spent a lot of time experiencing a similar existence.

Back to the topic of Texas life. I believe that people born in rural communities like I experienced, would have different belief systems had they been raised in more open and mentally adventurous environments. In other words, their culture is not genetic instead it is more like a meme. Why risk putting our nation's future in stifling cultural states?

As a side note, I witnessed many of my peers turn to drugs like meth and fake cannabis like Spice by the end of high school. Maybe that is the American and I did it wrong.