assuming you live in a relatively normal American small town, it is one of the main topics of conversation, and has been for a long time.

And that’s an incredibly biased source. Small american towns are overwhelmingly conservative spaces, but they are not the place where the majority of people live and have conversations. 80% of the population lives in urban areas:

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/urban-rural-populations.html

live in an urban hell-hole

I live maybe 5 minutes away from the downtown area of my ~300k pop city. It doesn’t seem to be a hell-hole to me unless you’re talking about the housing prices.

and never go to church or talk with normal people

What is a “normal” person to you?