In geography academia, "small town" usually means a place that has a name and between 5000 and 50000 inhabitants. Though I suspect that a large part of the confusion here is that a lot of US towns are very low density and don't have anything like a center. So those towns are themselves rural in look and feel, regardless of total population.
In a hyper-individuelistic society where everyone is constantly being compared and judged, the feeling that you're better than everyone else brings incredible relief. Of course the concept of being better than others is deeply flawed but you never learned to question these things. So how do you achieve the feeling? Study hard, lift others around you, save your money. Sure, but that takes years, and it's hard work. So what if you're inherently better than others-- that solves it. Race, language, gender, nationaliry.. All things that cost you no effort. There's another shortcut to these feelings. All you have to do to in order to become better than most of the population and get into to heaven is say that you believe the Bible. That's it. Just gotta say you believe it and you're in the club. Zero effort, all the dopamine. Supporting some sports team. Buying a particular car. Using what you buy to signal to others something about you. Bumper stickers, adding a ribbon to your profile picture, posting some cringe on LinkedIn, attention seeking on your birthday.. All attempts to showcase how excellent you are with minimal effort.
So if your entire sense of self worth is based on attributes about you which you were either born with or cost you no effort, you'll want to support anyone who places importance on those things. Nationality, consumerism, race, gender, religion, etc.
This is correct. Everyone in the US calls a kcal a calorie. I learned to distinguish them with big "C" and little "c", but I've just looked it up and this is apparently not so common. I guess ppl who are aware of these things just go with the SI unit of kJ.
I'm willing to bet that people aren't playing those songs in southern hemisphere winter.