I’ve long held a theory about what makes America so uniquely individualistic and prone to shunning any support from society. It also speaks to the cultural and political divide that separates the coastal areas so effectively from the inner parts of the country.

When the goal of populating the territories from coast to coast was realized via genocide and theft of Native land it left vast portions of the country disconnected from the society and culture of the coastal areas for several generations until technology, railroads, telegraph, etc brought them all together. During this isolation period for a large number of new Americans, the core of American society advanced with laws and a thriving economy along the coasts. It grew outward from those cultural centers with universities, museums, basic education, and orthodox religious institutions.

It was only natural that reuniting this widely disparate nation would lead to conflict, especially considering the first contact with the coastal culture for the inner portions was via the worst offerings of criminals, grifters, and corrupt bankers. This reunification also wasn’t made any easier by the fact that the settlers were also segregated by nationality (exclusively white) within the larger segregation. One can still easily determine the dominant nationality of the original settlers of any area by perusing the phonebook of any community.

The dividing lines between the original coastal culture and the unknown number of subcultures are made evident by the political red/blue alignment of the states. The deep distrust of government that arose from those first contacts is still quite evident. It is a remarkable level of cognitive dissonance that this distrust is mostly voiced by those whose claim of patriotism is their most uniting characteristic.