Most extremely conservative county in the US

[Idaho Conservative]

Williamson, TN in every sense of the world

Because the poster usually known as Extreme Conservative lives there?

Del Tachi is alluding to an ideological sort of conservatism, rather than merely Republican voting habits, I believe.  A ton of Americans are partisan, but only a much smaller number of people have coherent ideologies that go beyond mere partisanship.  There are obviously a lot of counties much more Republican than Williamson County, but the sort of conservatism in Williamson County is a deeply ideological one (in comparison to somewhere like Grundy County, TN (a Kerry '04 - 82% Trump '20 county)), where Trump is almost treated like a religion, but fewer people could explain their political views coherently.

Williamson County is also kind of the poster child type of suburb for upper-middle class people who go to large evangelical churches.  Just look at how much Williamson County stands out on this map of church attendance (as taken by GPS trackers on phones), even from the rest of the South.  The Mormon Belt is the only place that seems to have it beaten.  The type of conservatism that you get out of a well off Southern Baptist or non-denominational evangelical megachurch is very distinct from what you get in some Trump +70 rural county.

http://rynerohla.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/county_attend.png

Although, I don't know if I would describe Williamson County in 2020 as the absolute most conservative place in the USA, both because Williamson County has changed and (even more) because the definition of conservative has seemed to change.  Ironically, some exurban county on the fringes of the Atlanta Metro might be the answer, even with how Metro Atlanta caused Georgia to flip.  But, if we can rewind the clock a bit, the Daily Caller did rank Williamson County the #1 conservative-friendly county back in 2010:

https://dailycaller.com/2010/03/19/americas-most-conservative-friendly-county-is-williamson-county-horse-farms-guitar-shaped-pools-and-low-taxes/

Idk how accurate that GPS tracker map is.  No way Marin County, CA has higher church attendance than many counties in the MS Delta.

[Del Tachi]

Williamson, TN in every sense of the world

Because the poster usually known as Extreme Conservative lives there?

ExtremeConserative (and Blairite) gave us really good posts upthread, and what I was thinking when I named Williamson was a more "cultural" conservatism that goes beyond the Trumpian Republican politics of our moment.  Williamson has some of the biggest Evangelical churches in the country (as alluded to), the population resides almost entirely in SFHs headed by married couples, is ~90% White, high income, and exhibits high levels of trust in social institutions (churches, schools, community groups, etc.)  I also like Blairite's suggestion as Baldwin, AL as a potential answer, but the historic French Catholic culture in Lower Alabama/Mobile diminishes Evangelical influence in the area a bit IMO.

Rural counties mentioned by other posters may be more Republican or "Trumpian" but they are not more "conservative."  They are poor, uneducated, have remarkedly low levels of social trust (church attendance throughout rural Appalachia is abysmal) and have a much higher proportion of single-parent or mixed households than places like Williamson or Baldwin. 

[Del Tachi]

Idk how accurate that GPS tracker map is.  No way Marin County, CA has higher church attendance than many counties in the MS Delta.

I can believe it.  Per capita income in Humphreys County, MS is $11k a year (and it's only the 7th-poorest in MS).  The population is overwhelmingly Black, impoverished and young (~33% younger than age 18).  A lot of (Black) people in the rural Delta don't even own cars and live in houses with dirt floors.

What may be happening with the data is a combination of low cell phone penetration + non-established religious communities (i.e., "living room" churches) that aren't reported as church attendance, but please don't operate under the assumption that the MS Delta (and other parts of the rural South) are exceptionnally "churchy"   

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Williamson, TN in every sense of the world

Because the poster usually known as Extreme Conservative lives there?

ExtremeConserative (and Blairite) gave us really good posts upthread, and what I was thinking when I named Williamson was a more "cultural" conservatism that goes beyond the Trumpian Republican politics of our moment.  Williamson has some of the biggest Evangelical churches in the country (as alluded to), the population resides almost entirely in SFHs headed by married couples, is ~90% White, high income, and exhibits high levels of trust in social institutions (churches, schools, community groups, etc.)  I also like Blairite's suggestion as Baldwin, AL as a potential answer, but the historic French Catholic culture in Lower Alabama/Mobile diminishes Evangelical influence in the area a bit IMO.

I think they made really good points too, and the same goes for this post of yours.

However I still like my first answer, because whatever "cultural" conservatism Extreme Conservative and his neighbours have, I don't think it can even come close to Amish culture (even though the - barely a majority - non-Amish part of Holmes, OH, probably resembles rural Appalachia more than it does Williamson, TN).

[Alcibiades]

Williamson, TN in every sense of the world

Because the poster usually known as Extreme Conservative lives there?

ExtremeConserative (and Blairite) gave us really good posts upthread, and what I was thinking when I named Williamson was a more "cultural" conservatism that goes beyond the Trumpian Republican politics of our moment.  Williamson has some of the biggest Evangelical churches in the country (as alluded to), the population resides almost entirely in SFHs headed by married couples, is ~90% White, high income, and exhibits high levels of trust in social institutions (churches, schools, community groups, etc.)  I also like Blairite's suggestion as Baldwin, AL as a potential answer, but the historic French Catholic culture in Lower Alabama/Mobile diminishes Evangelical influence in the area a bit IMO.

Rural counties mentioned by other posters may be more Republican or "Trumpian" but they are not more "conservative."  They are poor, uneducated, have remarkedly low levels of social trust (church attendance throughout rural Appalachia is abysmal) and have a much higher proportion of single-parent or mixed households than places like Williamson or Baldwin.  

This is why I would also stick by my pick of LaSalle Parish, LA. It is not only demonstrably one of the most racially conservative places in the country, but it also has deep (for the non-ancestrally Unionist South) Republican roots, and started voting Republican at a time (the 1950s) when in the South this in large part indicated strong economic conservatism. But I agree Williamson (and in that vein Montgomery, TX), or at least its incarnation 10 years ago, is a decent bet as well.

[Idaho Conservative]

Idk how accurate that GPS tracker map is.  No way Marin County, CA has higher church attendance than many counties in the MS Delta.

I can believe it.  Per capita income in Humphreys County, MS is $11k a year (and it's only the 7th-poorest in MS).  The population is overwhelmingly Black, impoverished and young (~33% younger than age 18).  A lot of (Black) people in the rural Delta don't even own cars and live in houses with dirt floors.

What may be happening with the data is a combination of low cell phone penetration + non-established religious communities (i.e., "living room" churches) that aren't reported as church attendance, but please don't operate under the assumption that the MS Delta (and other parts of the rural South) are exceptionnally "churchy"   

blacks have the highest rate of church attendance among all races.

[I’m not Stu]

Williamson, TN in every sense of the world

Because the poster usually known as Extreme Conservative lives there?

ExtremeConserative (and Blairite) gave us really good posts upthread, and what I was thinking when I named Williamson was a more "cultural" conservatism that goes beyond the Trumpian Republican politics of our moment.  Williamson has some of the biggest Evangelical churches in the country (as alluded to), the population resides almost entirely in SFHs headed by married couples, is ~90% White, high income, and exhibits high levels of trust in social institutions (churches, schools, community groups, etc.)  I also like Blairite's suggestion as Baldwin, AL as a potential answer, but the historic French Catholic culture in Lower Alabama/Mobile diminishes Evangelical influence in the area a bit IMO.

Rural counties mentioned by other posters may be more Republican or "Trumpian" but they are not more "conservative."  They are poor, uneducated, have remarkedly low levels of social trust (church attendance throughout rural Appalachia is abysmal) and have a much higher proportion of single-parent or mixed households than places like Williamson or Baldwin.  

This is why I would also stick by my pick of LaSalle Parish, LA. It is not only demonstrably one of the most racially conservative places in the country, but it also has deep (for the non-ancestrally Unionist South) Republican roots, and started voting Republican at a time (the 1950s) when in the South this in large part indicated strong economic conservatism. But I agree Williamson (and in that vein Montgomery, TX), or at least its incarnation 10 years ago, is a decent bet as well.

Bobby Jindal, the economic conservative candidate, lost LaSalle Parish in 2003 and severely underperformed in the parish in 2007 (Democrats got over 40% in 2007). Racial conservatism is a higher priority than economic conservatism in LaSalle Parish.

[Alcibiades]

Williamson, TN in every sense of the world

Because the poster usually known as Extreme Conservative lives there?

ExtremeConserative (and Blairite) gave us really good posts upthread, and what I was thinking when I named Williamson was a more "cultural" conservatism that goes beyond the Trumpian Republican politics of our moment.  Williamson has some of the biggest Evangelical churches in the country (as alluded to), the population resides almost entirely in SFHs headed by married couples, is ~90% White, high income, and exhibits high levels of trust in social institutions (churches, schools, community groups, etc.)  I also like Blairite's suggestion as Baldwin, AL as a potential answer, but the historic French Catholic culture in Lower Alabama/Mobile diminishes Evangelical influence in the area a bit IMO.

Rural counties mentioned by other posters may be more Republican or "Trumpian" but they are not more "conservative."  They are poor, uneducated, have remarkedly low levels of social trust (church attendance throughout rural Appalachia is abysmal) and have a much higher proportion of single-parent or mixed households than places like Williamson or Baldwin.  

This is why I would also stick by my pick of LaSalle Parish, LA. It is not only demonstrably one of the most racially conservative places in the country, but it also has deep (for the non-ancestrally Unionist South) Republican roots, and started voting Republican at a time (the 1950s) when in the South this in large part indicated strong economic conservatism. But I agree Williamson (and in that vein Montgomery, TX), or at least its incarnation 10 years ago, is a decent bet as well.

Bobby Jindal, the economic conservative candidate, lost LaSalle Parish in 2003 and severely underperformed in the parish in 2007 (Democrats got over 40% in 2007). Racial conservatism is a higher priority than economic conservatism in LaSalle Parish.

Clearly. I’m just saying it’s more economically conservative (which is probably interlinked with its extreme racial conservatism) than many other rural Southern counties.

[°Leprechaun]

I have no idea, but Loving, TX comes to mind.

[H. Ross Peron]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_County,_Wyoming

Campbell County, Wyoming has close to 50k people yet is incredibly right-wing, recording 86.8% for Trump this year.

[Del Tachi]

Idk how accurate that GPS tracker map is.  No way Marin County, CA has higher church attendance than many counties in the MS Delta.

I can believe it.  Per capita income in Humphreys County, MS is $11k a year (and it's only the 7th-poorest in MS).  The population is overwhelmingly Black, impoverished and young (~33% younger than age 18).  A lot of (Black) people in the rural Delta don't even own cars and live in houses with dirt floors.

What may be happening with the data is a combination of low cell phone penetration + non-established religious communities (i.e., "living room" churches) that aren't reported as church attendance, but please don't operate under the assumption that the MS Delta (and other parts of the rural South) are exceptionnally "churchy"   

blacks have the highest rate of church attendance among all races.

Usually yes, but the Black population in the MS Delta is exceptionally poor and disadvantaged compared to the national Black population, even.

When you're considering edge cases, you shouldn't expect to see the rule.  You should expect to see exceptions to that rule. 

[Idaho Conservative]

Idk how accurate that GPS tracker map is.  No way Marin County, CA has higher church attendance than many counties in the MS Delta.

I can believe it.  Per capita income in Humphreys County, MS is $11k a year (and it's only the 7th-poorest in MS).  The population is overwhelmingly Black, impoverished and young (~33% younger than age 18).  A lot of (Black) people in the rural Delta don't even own cars and live in houses with dirt floors.

What may be happening with the data is a combination of low cell phone penetration + non-established religious communities (i.e., "living room" churches) that aren't reported as church attendance, but please don't operate under the assumption that the MS Delta (and other parts of the rural South) are exceptionnally "churchy"   

blacks have the highest rate of church attendance among all races.

Usually yes, but the Black population in the MS Delta is exceptionally poor and disadvantaged compared to the national Black population, even.

When you're considering edge cases, you shouldn't expect to see the rule.  You should expect to see exceptions to that rule. 

but the rural south in particular has a strong church culture.  Maybe it wouldn't be the highest due to economics, but church attendance is certainly higher in the Delta than San Francisco

[Samof94]

Texas County, Oklahoma

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Perhaps a county in Utah or Eastern Idaho?

[MarkD]

How about basing which county is most conservative on the voter's opposition to same-sex marriage?

Of all the states that held referendums on the subject, Mississippi voted the most heavily to ban same-sex marriage (86% statewide vote in favor of banning it), and of all the counties in the state of Mississippi, the one that voted most heavily in favor of banning it was Itawamba County -- 94% in favor of banning it in the state constitution. That was a referendum held in November, 2004 -- with much higher turnout than when Texas held its referendum on the same subject, which was November, 2005, and in Texas, the county with the highest margin of vote against same-sex marriage was Martin County, 95.4% against.

[Bootes Void]

Williamson County TN sounds like a stereotypical place where the Tuohys from The Blind Side would live.

Anyway I would suggest Jefferson County Idaho as a possibility. This is where John Birch society John Schmitz got his greatest support in 1972. Also democrats are usually in the single digits or in the teens here. I assume this is where you would find the most patriot/ off the grid types here

[I Stand With TRKL1917]

Williamson would probably be the most anti-weed county in Tennessee if there were a referendum on the issue in Tennessee. It sounds like a hellhole full of insufferable Karens.

From my experience in Kentucky's "Trump Country", the vast majority of Gen X and Millennials in working-class Trump areas (which are supposedly so "socially conservative") are pro-weed, and not really "social conservatives" in the religious right authoritarian neocon boomer sense.