Par for the course.

I grew up in the South hearing all about the evil big government yankees destroying our culture (“an entire civilization, Gone With the Wind”) and way of life, trying to force everybody to obey the central authority in Washington - nevermind how the states treated people, that’s their business, we don’t need big government coming in and meddling in our affairs.

Take all those arguments, go to the other side of the world, and couch them in leftist terminology like “imperialism” and “colonialism,” and you’ve got liberals with Tibet. Can’t talk sense into them anymore than you can talk sense into a redneck. Keep people in chains and call anyone who tries to break those chains an authoritarian, it’s literally the exact same playbook.