Philadelphia, the core of Pittsburgh and urban (Harrisburg, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, etc.) are liberal. The suburbs are in between.
The rural areas are quite conservative.
SOME of the residents in those areas are rather backwards. A small minority to be sure, but they are there. Go to West Virginia and elsewhere in Appalachia and you will frequently encounter the sentiment.
I’ve heard people use the n-word in casual conversation before, but rarely ever in a racist way. The only encounter I ever had with any actual racists were a couple of wannabe skinheads in Ft. Lauderdale who took a strange exception to the blue handkerchief I was wearing on my head. Not a very conservative place there either.
Usually people who genuinely hate <~insert something to hate here~>, they’ve never met anyone of the sort, or they had a bad encounter with one and assume things about the rest. Kind of like the way city-folks speak condescendingly of us hill folk. Ignorance from lack of travel IMO.
Many in and near Boston are nothing but passive aggressive ■■■■■ who ridicule southerners for coming right out and expressing views they themselves express in a more covert manner:
Arpaio has about as much chance of winning his old job back as Trump does winning California. I am registered to vote in Maricopa County here, and there is no way in hell that I am going to vote for Arpaio.