I look forward to your discussion of the urban/rural divide part of it - because I think that makes it a weirdly complicated issue. While there are no doubt times when people look down on people in rural areas there are also (especially depending on states etc.) real ways in which rural areas are pretty hostile to cities. I don't mean to say this makes insults ok - just it seems more complicated to me than horrible elitist people in the city oppress the real Americians in the rural heartland or uneducated hicks are morons who are forcing their horrible repression on the enlightened urbanites. For one thing while obviously not everyone can move at will- some people do - so some of the hostility in either direction is from people who chose to move to the city from rural places (or vice versa) because they hated where they used to live - which adds a weird dimension to way the two areas view each other. Well and then you have the suburbs which add a whole different set of crazy attitudes to the mix.