Small town New England can suck as you explained.power hungry liberals at work.Touchy feely BS school boards and all the rest.
I have seen it at work, been to the meetings, and been related to two people who engaged in it.
My late father, while ostensibly a Democrat, was a DINO to get elected to local office, because you could not get elected any other way back in the Seventies in small town Eastern Massachusetts. He was a plank owner of CITIZENS FOR LIMITED TAXATION in this state, which describes his philosophy pretty well.
He got lots of hate mail and vicious phone calls from people sicc’ed on him by the liberal members of the selectmen and school board, because he was usually the one to not rubber stamp liberal spending. He took it all in stride, which I really admired.