Flyover land

When I use the term "flyover land" it carries with it primarily geographic connotations. Flyover land is the Midwest, however you care to define it. Flyover land has red states and blue states, more or less equally. It is also associated in the popular mind (read the coastal mind) with many things that are not true, such as excessive religiosity, conservative politics, devotion to the military, etc., etc. You do find these things in flyover land, as in anywhere else. But they are here because of small towns and rural settings, not because they are in the midwest. All of these characteristics are more pronounced the further south you go, because the further south you go there are fewer big cities. Big cities are the antidote to conservative politics and the baggage carried by those who are its blind adherents.

Other people apparently use the term to denigrate the residents of the small-town and rural Midwest and Mountain west. I use it to describe the vast open spaces where the NWA planes don't land. Some people use it to refer to the place in the US where people use cream of mushroom soup as a binder for everything (that may be correct). Flyover land people may be conservative, and they may like cream of mushroom soup, but recent elections show us that this part of the country, however defined, is not homogenous. And that's a good thing.