It doesn't really surprise me. New England has since the very beginning of its settlement been populated by a puritanical mindset that seeks to control behavior of individuals. The Salem Witch Trials were the infamous example of a sort of groupthink that still exists. Its modern incarnation could be called PC, or adhering to the general leftist narrative complete with its own set of dogmatic axioms and cardinal sins. I think you can more generally see it as a long arc of busybody-ism, it's as if from one generation to the next they go from one moral outrage to another.
It's funny that you should mention the Salem Witch Trials.
Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible which was about the witch trials but also an allegory to the McCarthy hearings on Anti-Americanism. It could be seen today as an allegory to the predominant liberal presence in media and culture where instead of "Witch!" the cry is "Racist!" or "Intolerant!"
And, of course, most recently, "Rich!" or "Bankster!" or "Capitalist!" or, as usual, "Jew!"
Irony.
Put another way: What goes around comes around.
