It's true that if you tell anyone out there that you live in Portland, their first response is "I'm so sorry," followed up with "it's turned into such a shithole". This is always said to imply that it's not as white as it used to be, and people will get more specific if you let them. But most of them only know this from watching TV. They never go to the city even though it's less than 45 minutes away.

So being close to Portland might explain part of their allergic reaction to hippies. But I'm not sure if it's the whole issue. Oregon isn't just a red state with one dark-blue enclave. It also has a history of extremist white nationalism going back well over a century since its foundation a whites-only state. Then, in the 1980s and onward it became a destination for white nationalist groups, along with Idaho and eastern Washington. Grant's Pass and Medford, in particular, are hotbeds of extremism.

Another little anecdote. When I was relatively new to town, I struck up a conversation with an intelligent, pretty woman sitting outside a bar one day. She grew up in Grant's Pass. We hit it off and chatted for almost two hours before I mentioned I was Jewish. She got a stricken look and said, "oh - that's the one kind of person my Dad would kill me if I ever brought home." I asked why and she said, "He loves Adolf Hitler". She went on to explain that her father kept all of Hitler's speeches around the house. She said she wasn't into "any of those politics". Well, so much for that one.