Political identity signalling in Portland Oregon vs. Boise Idaho
I just spent three months in Portland Oregon on contract and left in April. As soon as Mount Hood was no longer visible in my rear view mirror, I sighed a mild relief and said "that was weird" and damn near forgot the place existed until the Portland hate thread was posted the other day. Just started reflecting on observations I wrote down.
I’m traveling as a nurse from a tight-knit New England Catholic community, both of these cities feel extremely alien. I have hopped on 3-month contracts in the Northwest, interior northwest, and the northeast. It’s a way to scratch the restless wanderer itch I’ve had since I was a wee sensitive young man reading Kerouac, make money, learn about different people and regional healthcare delivery styles, do frivolous bullshit, etc. Probably have it made. Emotionally detached from it.
I spent three months in Montana and have nothing negative to say about the folks there. Montana has its own set of geographic and socioeconomic challenges that the lifestyle magazines and streaming slop shows are not in the business of educating people on. I ’m not saying which city I lived in but people in that state generally just want to hunt, fish, hike, smoke weed, and be left alone. They generally support their LGBT neighbors and are pro choice. Hardly anybody gives a shit who their neighbors voted for.
The other side of the Bitterroot Mountains is heavily inundated with identity politics. Southeastern Idaho has some weird creepy Mormon stuff going on. A lot of Ned Flanders-looking people with a sinister edge to them. I remember walking into a Five Guys in Pocatello and having 10 people turn around to stare at me all at once, as if they’ve communicated via chemical signals that an imposter was among them. The Northern Panhandle of Idaho has a history of racial extremism that the state museum in Boise has some honest and informative displays on. My ex gf and I went garnet mining up there but didn’t really talk to anybody. Gas station clerks just want you to grab your coffee and your sandwich and get the hell out. Some weird looking flags that I could only assume were related to far right groups were on display outside people’s homes.
Boise city proper is red by plurality, where the rest of southwestern Idaho is red by majority. These people aren’t extremists like up north, or uncanny mormons like in the East, but rather your typical angry indignant conservative whose entire inner world is grievance politics. You know, your uncle who always wants to bait an argument at thanksgiving about the trains. Your obnoxious coworker who plays Charlie Kirk Owning The Libs reels too loud at work and yells at his phone. This genre of conservative dominates in this region. Boise is the only place I’ve ever walked into a patient’s room and got immediately grilled about who I voted for in the last election. “Oh you’re from Boston? Has it been burnt to the ground by the ILLEGALS yet?” People in the ED waiting room throwing hissy fits because the television is playing CNN.
White grievance politics bleeds into every conversation in the Treasure Valley. I was spotting a guy at the gym my first week there and introduced myself. Less than a Planck time after telling him my name, he launches full force into a rant about the “transgender Mexicans from California who are ruining our state.” “Go Back To California” is a mantra chanted quite often (in a mcdonalds accent usually), but never said directly to someone from California. Boise has a lot of transplants from The Bay Area/Sacramento who have been priced out of the housing market down there. Most of these transplants vote red and desperately want to prove that they’re “not like those other Californians.” The bumper stickers and yard signs are very confrontational in nature with an uncouthness to them. “Joe and the hoe gotta go” was a phrase I would read quite often on people’s front lawns on my way to work. Or on the back of bumpers on my way to the grocery store where I would have to get on the highway and was immediately greeted by barely legal street tanks driving 85mph in a 55 zone. This was summer of 2023. There was controversy about an upzoning initiative in the city during this time.
In Portland, the political identity signaling is a lot less confrontational. It takes the form of an ambient pressure to conform and have the correct opinions. Typical RS takes about sex work, polyamory, and mass immigration are takes one should keep to themselves if they want to play the social game. I was there January to March of this year. I remember doing trivia at a book bar. The trivia topic and conversation was pretty innocuously about geology. While i was trying to remember the difference between a stalagmite and stalagtite, the hostess blurts out “Oh and by the way, FUCK ICE!” Everybody and started cheering and clapping. I was caught off guard and didn’t cheer and clap with them and ended up getting the cold shoulder from the other patrons for the rest of the night. It’s a strange method of exclusion. For the record, I agree, Fuck ICE. But you’re preaching to the choir. Can we chill out?
This next example is just as weird and maybe somebody here with better language skills who’s spent time in PDX can articulate this phenomenon. In normal polite conversation, people will make vague off-handed politically charged statements just to see how you will react. These statements are calculated and the policing of your reaction is very covert. They’re attuned to your micro-expressions. If they don’t like your reaction, they won’t tell you. You’ll just be silently demoted in their brain and discarded. Categorized as unworthy. I’m quite attuned to this kind of shit testing. I’d almost rather them just yell in my face like Idahoans do.
Yard and business signage in Portland is less aggressive than Boise. It’s the typical “in this house, we believe” bullshit. Not as interesting. The nursing culture is bizarre in Portland. Though identity politics don’t permeate the barrier as hard in my profession as other (no land acknowledgements before morning unit huddle), many of the social bizarrities of Portland are still present in hospitals. I had made a comment about this on the other thread.
it’s been fascinating to immerse in two places in the same geographic region where people who get super attached to their opposite political leanings express their neuroticisms in far different ways.
Portland is overall a much better place than Boise if you were wondering. I just wish the people there could be normal. Go and see the rose garden and the food trucks and the cherry blossoms and the giga book store. It’s worth it.
tl;dr Both bizarre. One hostile and one passive-aggressive.