We are all, regardless of the direction of our political leaning, suspended in our beliefs by the community we are part of.
If you don’t believe me, I encourage you to try walking down Main Street in small town America with a BLM flag. It’ll be received about as well as parading a Trump 2024 flag around a coastal city.
Ithaca, NY is a college town with a top-tier university and is located in Tompkins county which went 73.5% for Biden in 2020. It happens to be a small town, but I don't know that I'd consider it representative of small town America.
It is also a liberal college town with all of the externalization that can invoke. You only need to head to Oswego, or Genesee county generally to find a lot of upstate NY conservatism, often similarly openly shared.