Yours are very interesting ideas, R. You could well be right. The same crowd also gravitates to the Left, including the Democrat Party. I've been saying that the Democrat Party is the party of sociopaths and morons. We might also add the seriously delusional. It's the sociopaths, as you say preditors, who manipulate and exploit the morons and other assorted nuts who make up the rank and file of the Left.
Conservatives in Hollywood should ban together and out the leftists for blacklisting them. If it were an issue of race or sex or religion, we would have a strong lawsuit. They should be outed.
Thanks. The thing that started me thinking about it was how movies such as Pleasantville (which I liked), The World According to Garp (hated), Edward Scissorhands (never could get through), The Last Picture Show (ultra-nihilistic), etc., had such a negative view of middle America. Then it hit me. If the actors and directors had liked middle America, they wouldn't have left.