Nope I’ve definitely grown up in and road tripped/train tripped red-purple country (edit: and I’m white trash and present male so it’s an easy pass) so I know what people really think. I’ve also been on the receiving end of violence by standing up and confronting them.

This is a key point - many folks who are left-leaning grew up in right-leaning areas, have right-leaning extended family, etc. We aren't extrapolating from the internet.

There are a number of structural asymmetries between left and right, and it does no favors to any truth-based cause to assume that left and right are mirrors, as if their names required that.