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Given how mobile the nation is, there is more commonality than not in different areas of the country. As long as we all speak one language that will always be the unifier.
You're wrong, at least when it comes to politics and religiosity. There are plenty of left-leaning rural areas in New England, the Upper Midwest, and the West Coast. And in much of the deep south, the most arch-conservative areas (if you're going by religious sentiment and Republican voting patterns among whites) are actually the suburbs, not the rural areas.
I think this a case of "not knowing what the hell your talking about". Because an area votes GOP doesn't it make it socially arch conservative. There are more than a plenty of moderate Republicans in the South.
The complete ignorance about the South never ceases to amaze me.
It could be because hardly any true libertarians run for local offices in the region.
I dunno. People who say they are libertarian, but then vote for Republicans (or Democrats for that matter) in every election sort of **** me off. It doesn't matter in politics what you hold in your heart of hearts, it matters what the politicians you vote for actually enact.
In my experience with the Deep South, white suburbanites are basically always reflexively Republican. In contrast, while most rural whites also vote Republican, they still do have some (rapidly diminishing) dixiecrat roots, and will support a Democrat for local office, if the candidate appeals to them correctly.
^^^Not to derail the thread, but its up to the libertarian party to market their ideas to the voting public. Having Ron Paul as the face of libertarianism doesn't help matters at all.
What ever your political stance on things is, that only represents a small % of the overall culture. The culture is way more of what you do with your life, what are the common activities a lot of people identify with. For example, In Saskatchewan curling is a really big thing. Even the schools take the kids curling. Do they curl in Minnesota? They sure as heck don't in New Mexico. Some places have big time hunting sub culture. It seemed to me that in South Dakota, most guys hunt. Not so much in New Jersey. West Virginia has the most unique cultural feeling I have come across in the USA. It's just really different than other places.
The culture of the Yuppers is as different from a Texan as a Dane from a Italian!
LOL.
For starters, a Dane and an Italian cannot even communicate with each other.
In tiny England, there are more variations in the English accent than there is across the entire USA. And it gets even more dramatic if you add the Scots to it. I basically need subtitles watching Scottish movies.
I agree with the OP, America is homogeneous culturally. There are some differences, but rather small for a country so large.
I actually think America is on the whole extremely similar culturally regardless of what state you're in, with only a few exceptions. Even places as different as New England and the Deep South are 90-95 percent the same, especially when one factors in the differences of urban and rural culture.
Rural Washington state has more in common with rural Alabama than either do with Seattle or Birmingham, respectively.
I also think the similarities present throughout America, with the possible exception of Hawaii and southern Louisiana are stronger than cross-border similarities between the northern US and adjacent Canadian regions. Fundamentally Bellingham, Washington has more in common with Jacksonville or South Bend than it does with Vancouver or Victoria because it's an American city full of Americans.
Even though Southerners for example are more conservative and religious than people on my native West Coast, I think this has more to do with the South having a higher proportion of rural residents. Somewhere like Asheville or Austin is very similar to Northwestern cities like Eugene and Olympia, and a rural part of Montana or Idaho is generally very similar to rural Ohio or Tennessee. You can find plenty of Christian fundies in the Western states and they aren't much different from their Southern counterparts, same with urban southern hipsters being cut-copies of the ones in Brooklyn and Portland.
I think the differences between regions of America are over-stated and the difference between America and other western countries is understated. I find Canada quite foreign in many ways so I imagine Australia, Ireland, etc are far moreso even.
I agree with you
Uniqueness and eccentricity is being replaced by conformity
One only needs to look at fashion and TV and listen to music to see that
American culture has hit its state and lame stage going on 15 yrs
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