When I was 13, my family moved from a progressive farming community in Oregon (yes they do exist), to a conservative, highly religious farming community in Indiana. I experienced deep culture shock going from playing gardens with hippies to people who’d lived on the same exact piece of land for generations. They loved guns, Jesus and the military in that order. I struggled in college because the high school education I received was so elementary. Guidance counselors tried to talk you out of your dreams and 15 girls in my class got pregnant before they graduated, if they did. There is so much pain, anger and abuse going on under the surface, religious abuse, domestic abuse, homophobia, racism. You are correct, country music stars and politicians have NO IDEA what it’s really like to be country.