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Notes -
This might be the geographical variation you referred to, or it might be a difference in definition or emphasis on the tribal concept.
In my mind, the Blue Tribe/Red Tribe split is meant to encompass the vast majority of white Americans (non-Whites have different dynamics, though may be in alliance with Red/Blue whites in different cases). Of course there are geographies and professions where one side has a vast preponderance and the other is rare as hen's teeth. But a huge percentage of the white American population lives in between, neither in Manhattan nor the Yellowstone ranch, in suburbs and small cities. Their attitude toward that liminal location, whether they want it to be more like Manhattan or more like Yellowstone, tells you more about the attitudes of tribesmen than their actions, which are mostly pretty similar. The core red triber isn't a quiverfull oilfield welder who goes to church every Sunday, and the core Blue Triber doesn't have a masters in Gender Studies they use at their email job. Those are extremes, the tiny outer percentages of the population. Rather, distinguishing Red/Blue is about how two sets of suburban parents conceptualize how to teach morality to their 2.5 kids, how they go about lying to their parents about whether they're going to church every Sunday, etc.
This might be geographically personal. I live at the rural exurb edge of the I-95 megalopolis, the last highway exit on the East Coast. Drive west from my house for ten minutes and you see nothing but farms, red tribe country, until you hit Pittsburgh. Drive east or south from my house and in two to three hours you can be in the middle of any of four major cities. I live in that liminal space, where every house on the block might vote differently, and I conceptualize its importance. The keystone, the swing vote, the tipping point. Lose the suburbs, electorally and culturally, and Red Tribe is dead. Win them, and as Hunter S. Thompson said about the 60s, the great wave from the coast will break and roll back from that high water mark.
I think the main division in the red tribe is degree of religiosity(committed versus casual Christian) and then region(southern versus midwestern versus southwestern versus west) and geography(suburban/exurban versus actually rural). My description was pretty southern casual-religious suburban. Midwesterners are probably just a little different.
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The last exit on I-95 is in Houlton Maine. It is wayyyyy more than 2 hours to Boston. But if you want to drink half frozen Molson beer while ice fishing, there is no better place to be.
Sorry, wasn't clear there, I'm the last Exit going West once you exit 95 not the last exit on I95 itself.
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