I don’t understand WA state either...
To me, it does not seem hard to understand and can be summed up in a sentence. The dominant culture in Seattle is nuts, and both through influencing the weak-minded outside of Seattle and by politically dominating the state, they make life miserable for people living in relatively sane cultural enclaves outside of Seattle.
This seems simple, straight-forward, and self evident. Of course, I grew up sort of next door in rural Oregon, and if you substitute “Portland and Eugene” for Seattle, the sentence would apply to Oregon. I suspect that there are a large number of political entities of State/Provincial size that one merely need sub in the name of the largest one or two cities and the sentence becomes true.
I remember back when WA was the sane one and OR was where the near socialists lived. When the Berlin wall came down, we used to joke about buying it and putting it on the Columbia River. Sigh … the good old days.