Oh, right, I'm not doubting that they do; I just can't make it go, in my own head. It's like people who have thirteen kids: when they say they love all their kids a lot, and love them all equally, I believe them. It's just that if I try to put myself in their position, I keep coming back to, Holy shit, thirteen kids? Thirteen? Kids? Really? Thirteen?

And I've run into an unfortunate number of people who think they are all-over Americans because they think that their region is what everything else is like. So I have to try not to assume that other people who self-identify primarily as American are being like that.