Well, I have to admit, that's a very authentically-constructed rural-style argument. And anyway, I'm not questioning your expertise or credibility in that regard.

I'm well aware of, though I don't know the reasons for, Kentucky's relatively progressive outlook compared to that of some parts of rural California. Heck, some parts of rural California are so fed up with the progressiveness of coastal California that they wanted to split off into their own state ("State of Jefferson", possibly with some counties from Oregon also). It's not uniform, though. Mendocino county is way more progressive than any of rural Kentucky, and Trinity and others are more progressive by a more modest degree. There's a lot of diversity. Rural communities still, despite the diversity, tend to have certain other things in common that aren't exactly the things on Pluralus' list--but I already granted that the generalization was overly broad.

Another way the generalization is overly broad is that even if you're in the reddest of the red rural areas, or the bluest of the blue rural areas, of course people are diverse. In one community I know, of the five or so people I know well enough to say anything about, one is more blue than Nancy Pelosi and four others are well right of Kevin McCarthy. That doesn't make the generalization useless, though, just, again, overly broad.

I don't know what point you're trying to make with Mitch McConnell vs Kevin McCarthy. Mitch is from an older generation, too, where compromise and traditional conservative values were important, not just owning the libs. Kevin's riding more of the populist and confrontational angle, but can you honestly say James Comer isn't? I mean, he's not part of the House Freedom Caucus, but I don't see a whole lot of air between his approach and Kevin's.

Anyway, I don't doubt that you know what you know and you know it well, but you don't have the time to experience every corner of rural America. Nobody does, and that's why we resort to numbers and stereotypes to tell a simplified not-exactly-right but hopefully-better-than-nothing story. Caveats are important to warn that there is diversity, details, inaccuracies, and so on. But Pluralus is not wrong when he says that rural America has become something of a punching bag for the urban progressive who will happily recommend cultural reformation apparently without noticing that they decry the exact same kind of cultural imperialism when directed at anyone who doesn't happen to be their (perceived) political adversary. Even if he has completely wrong every aspect of rural culture and values, he still isn't wrong about that.

"Don't talk about us, you don't know us" isn't a fair ask, because you get talked about anyway by others. It sucks being used as a talking point to advance someone else's goal that you don't agree with, but there's no more fundamental aspect to a democracy than to talk about who's in your democracy and what you should do. We get to talk about each other.

"If you're gonna talk about us, get it right" is a fair ask. If you've been telling Pluralus elsewhere what he gets wrong, and he doesn't fix the mistakes (or document why they're not mistakes) and just keeps making them, that's pretty inconsiderate. I certainly wouldn't endorse that. But is that what's happening?

I'm not going to apologize for offering various weakened versions of Pluralus' list. No insult was intended, and if you take one where none was intended, that's your business. I'm not making stuff up at random or thoughtlessly reading off stereotypes--there are reasons for my characterization, though I freely admit that the evidence isn't conclusive ("what gets measured, etc."). If I get something wrong and you show it, I will apologize for the mistake, and I won't make it again (insofar as I'm able--I don't always remember everything).

If you're going to try to do it on the basis of authority rather than evidence that you can share with me, though--sorry, that's right out for me personally. I've had hundreds of hours of my time and effort wasted, and my personal safety jeopardized, among other things, by the attitude that authority and being an established member of the community is more important than getting it right. Not your fault at all, but my patience with this kind of thing is approximately zero by now.