...but I'm also thinking about the time I read a "Harlequin NASCAR" romance - which was very conservative in a fascinating way, and which tried to position the NASCAR-driver hero as a kind of aristocrat by emphasising his roots as a small farmer who owned land.

So I'm wondering if the (white, conservative) American ideal of the pioneer farmer switched from natural democrat to natural aristocrat somewhere along the line. And if so, I wonder when and how that happened?