Man, you want to be painted with the "evil" brush refuse to fall lock step in line with the west/east coast political groupthink. Even being suspected of not being a party member is a scary place to be.
I agree that's awful behavior too, but it's not everybody that does that. I think the majority of people on either the left/right divide are generally okay, but the extremists are pretty much by definition much more vocal and much more noticeable in their "Crazy", and get everyone else painted with the same brush as a result.