The logic checks out.

I visited a friend in west PA a few years ago, stopped by for a few days while I was traveling around the states, had known him from a game for about 10 years before that.

He was a good host, and I always knew he was kinda 'country', but I had no idea that he was basically, well... He explained that there was nothing good outside of America and he had no interest in traveling outside the confines of the US. Europe and the UK were just full of communists. If I joked about any criticism of the US he got really pissed off.

Which wasn't a good idea when he had already shown me his armoury full of every type of weapon you could think of. Including his home made explosives.

He was no means uneducated or isolated, not at all. He was a retired oil exec with a background in engineering, his wife was I think a senior manager in another high tech energy industry. He'd run multiple businesses and was wealthy.

Carried a gun everywhere he went, refused to wear a seatbelt, complained about the government and cops.

I was speaking to friends later who explained to me that basically the people living up the mountains of west PA are the northern equivalent of the deep, deep south.