I love the smell of napalm in the kitchen.

Smells like victory

I've felt the same as you and have been working to find like-minded people in my area, and have found some success, so I can offer a bit of advice. Even in deep red rural areas there is likely to be an active Indivisible chapter, and the people who participate in those groups - despite their closeness to the DNC - tend to be on the more progressive side of liberal and more willing to act beyond just electoralism. Usually in the rural red areas they will skew older as well, but there's almost guaranteed to be younger and more lefty folks lurking in the group chat, they just tend to have less free time to dedicate to it or they may be more cynical about the protests. You can also find leftists by volunteering at places like homeless shelters, soup kitchens, etc. so long as you avoid the evangelical ones. I've also found like-minded people at farmer's markets, though that's usually a mixed bag, but if you do something subtle to make yourself visibly inclusive like a pin or a t-shirt with a progressive message like-minded people might approach you, but of course you might want to be careful about attracting the wrong kind of attention. Look for more hippie-ish looking folks and you'll hit more often than you miss.

I'm still working at it but I've managed to find a decent number of like-minded people in a much shorter time than I expected by doing some of the things listed above, and this is in rural West Kentucky. Form relationships with the people you find and the organizing can follow.

It's going to be harder. Start subtly subversive but hard to criticize mutual aid. Local cultures vary. Look for how they existed together 20 years ago as a guide for what kind of thing will go over well. Maybe somebody misses the bowling alley or church potluck.

Use descriptions not labels. Talk about values not movements. 'Communism' is evil, 'anarchism' is chaos! But sharing togetherness community freedom and democracy are much easier to sell.

Figure out whose fascism is shallow aesthetic 'going along to get along' and who's genuinely a monster to the core. They're going to have shitty opinions and be wrong about everything, but figure out why they're wrong and where/how you can push. Arguing is not generally helpful until they already respect you. Remember; most capitalist subjects are just tribalistic little monkeys who believe in nothing, and wouldn't know if they did.

You're going to be dealing with a lot more nuance and edge cases. Most of your attempts to start things will fail, and if you don't, the risks of 'bad success'¹ are much higher.

Figure out a place to buy used books and get copies of your fav very basic theory to just have around for people to pick up. Kropotkin and frieri are good for that. Some lefty fiction isn't a bad thing to have around. Or if you have a portable projector, have a film playing. Be fucking creative and know your target.

You're going to fail. You're going to revise and adapt.

¹organization going bad directions and cultiness

I know Lemmy or any online space loves to see everything in black and white. From my experience, people are a lot more complicated than that. I’ve lived in both extremely rural areas and big cities. I’ve met good and honest people that were conservative and left leaning people that acted like toxic shitheads. Politics are important and it’s good to have values, but in certain relationships it’s best to just not hyper focus on it so much. Solidarity with fellow working class people is more important than agreeing on absolutely every single issue.