Grimm 
No thanks, #Republicandebate, if I wanted to listen to a gaggle of try-hard racist losers yammer out stupid and demonstrably wrong shit about how society should be fixed by making it horrible I'd have gone to my high school reunion.
My graduating class was 42 people and one of them, a guy I'd played varsity basketball with, not a year out tried to convince me God had demonstrated the evils of alcohol to him by giving him a hangover and tried to use this testimony to woo me to the loving arms of evangelicalism.
In my hometown they talk about Chicago like it is Mordor and this is whitecode, of course, but don't let the coding confuse you, they're maybe two beers away from being so irked you questioned their very good and very well-researched take on socioeconomics and morality and existence that they casually drop the N-word without looking around. Because they don't have to look around.
Not that anybody wants a more textured analysis of idyllic American small towns as a cauldron of witting fascism, but if you DO want that, here's a thing I scribbled off to the Des Moines Register in a fit of absolute fucking rage back in 2020 and, to my utter astonishment, they published it.
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/2020/07/06/iowa-racism-why-small-town-values-cauldron-brews-bigotry/5382064002/
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/2020/07/06/iowa-racism-why-small-town-values-cauldron-brews-bigotry/5382064002/
I got emails from people who read this and found it made them very mad so they offered me a) their prayers as a prescription for me being pissed off at racism and b) threats of violence in their principled defense of freedom and as a solution to the heresy of the words I'd typed. I'd wager the pittance of every dollar I have that these were people from or dwelling in small towns and this was their principled effort to show how good they were.
Blue Emu@GrimmReality Thank you for posting this. I might print copies of it to give to my relatives at Christmas. We are driving from Boston to Omaha, and I am not looking forward to the trip. I love my family, but I don't want to even visit Nebraska and Iowa if I can avoid it. And what you've written here is why.
@blueemu Solidarity and, just basic common sense, stick to the cities for logistical stops. Gas up in Davenport or Iowa City or Des Moines. Gas is always cheaper in Des Moines anyway.
@GrimmReality We're overnighting in Erie, PA (I used to work in Erie so I know it well), and Peru, IL on the way there.
For the return trip I had to face reality and book a room in South Bend. Woulda preferred to make it to Ohio, but I've done Omaha to Toledo before and it's too much for one day. But the last pit stop is Syracuse, then back to the People's Republic of Massachusetts.
@blueemu South Bend is fine for what you need. But - I assume you know this but just in case not - there is a Tim Horton's right off the Interstate on the west side of Toledo!
(I know it's not that big a deal, I just like going to Tim Horton's when I can because I think, however shallowly, it is an endorsement of Canada)
Mike 🇨🇦 NuanceRhymesWithOrange@GrimmReality Small-town Canada is no better than this. Many of my brain cells committed suicide this week after listening to fellow-hunters here in Ontario. This article resonates.
@NuanceRhymesWithOrange dammit, I want Letterkenny to be real.
@GrimmReality Also, wanted to say you are an excellent writer and follow.
You ever see House of Large Sizes play?
@blueemu Thank you! And I have, but twas a long time ago, I believe on a shared bill at Schuba's in Chicago.
@GrimmReality very cool. They were one of my favorites BITD. Saw them first at Hairy Mary's in DSM in 1993, the night Joe Carter won the World Series. Seen them like 8 times? The Machine Shed in Iowa City, and we actually booked them to play on campus at Drake. Anyway, rarely talk to someone who has heard of HOLS. 😁
Candi@GrimmReality As a former Iowan who lived in a small town surrounded by racists (including my parents), this is AMAZING. I moved away as soon as I graduated, and currently I live in Kansas City. There are definitely plenty of racists here, but there’s tons of diversity and much *more* like-minded people. I can’t stand small towns. Never again. Thanks for sharing.
@steamedcarrot Congrats on making it to civilization!
Michael Porter@GrimmReality I’m glad that you made your voice heard. It's an important message for the folks with limited experiences.
I hope that it opened a few people’s eyes, although I’m sure a lot of people just got offended… 🤷🏻♂️
A Shiny Blue Thing@GrimmReality I don't find small towns to be idyllic at all. I live in one. I graduated from high school in another one.
Fewer people often means the roiling darkness is closer to the surface, no matter how calm that surface is to those who don't want to look closely.
Matt Campbell@GrimmReality I wonder to what extent suburbs have the same problem. I grew up in suburban neighborhoods, and I feel I grew up in a bubble as a result, especially once my parents started enrolling my siblings and me in a private evangelical Christian school.
@matt It's going to be a sliding scale but the key indicator will be insularity. The more orthodox and homogenous any community is, the less it sees real problems ITS denizens don't have as problems, therefore the less empathy and less inclination to collectively solve real problems and more inclination to be convinced that solving them is some kind of alien conspiracy against them.
So, sure, xenophobia and racism will be more prevalent in more cloistered suburbs than in cities, but there are definitely mixed middle class/blue collar suburbs, probably older ones and closer to the urban hub, where it's not as bad.
All this with the boilerplate acknowledgement that, yes, as the essay stipulates, there are elements of good and bad in every polity - it's the concentration of tolerance of bigots and shit behavior that's the issue. And it concentrates where monoculture exists and, thus, no one calls the shit behavior out.
Gwyn Ciesla@GrimmReality that sounds suspiciously like a few of my graduating class of 47...
@gwync I'll bet! Solidarity.
Frank Bennett 🇯🇵@GrimmReality Not the first man to see God in a puddle of his own vomit.
To borrow from another joke, racism accumulates in small towns. Newcomers bring a little with them, and people who escape don't take much away. So racism accumulates.
ᴚ uɐᗡ@GrimmReality it's... so bad
Kelly Wheaton 
🦫💧🐸 🌻🌹@GrimmReality an hour was all we coukd stand. The onky one not constantly lying was Chris Christie.
Ray N. Franklin 🇺🇸@GrimmReality Funny how all high school reunions share that trait. Same in facebook HS graduating class groups. 🏁 👊
RodneyPetersonTalentAgencyBut are you going to claim you invented Post It notes?
@RodneyPetersonTalent The only things I claim to have invented are a few very cool neologisms.
Aaron O@GrimmReality I thought that was what twitter is now for?
Grandpa DonRight!
I went to the 25th reunion & realized that my class was probably 95% MAGA (well before that was a thing) & said nope nope nope to all successive ones. Except the 40th. I managed to locate and contact the prom queen who had totally dropped out of sight and convince her to go by agreeing to be her escort. I had a mad crush on her for 4 years while she dated a basketball star. Later married, divorced for physical abuse. I endured the reunion because
SCORRRE! (Peck on cheek)