Edsall puts blame for current state of politics squarely on rural voters' shoulders

Thomas Edsall's column for the New York Times this week was alternatively titled, "Republicans are Riding High on Place-Based Resentment" and "The Resentment Fueling the Republican Party Is Not Coming from the Suburbs."  Here's the lede that, like the second headline, places blame for Trump on rural folks:  

Rural America has become the Republican Party’s life preserver.

Less densely settled regions of the country, crucial to the creation of congressional and legislative districts favorable to conservatives, are a pillar of the party’s strength in the House and the Senate and a decisive factor in the rightward tilt of the Electoral College. Republican gains in such sparsely populated areas are compensating for setbacks in increasingly diverse suburbs where growing numbers of well-educated voters have renounced a party led by Donald Trump and his loyalists.

The piece covers some familiar territory of late, including discussion of Munis and Jacob's recent work on rural political resentment.  

What annoys me most is how it places blame for the state of American democracy on rural voters.  Yes, Trump's margins were better in many rural places than in many suburban ones, but far greater numbers of folks live in those suburban places.  This means that even if the Trump/right-wing margins are greater in rural areas, the suburbs still have more power to determine political outcomes.  One of the headlines for this column says the "resentment" isn't coming from suburbs.  This makes me wonder what is coming from the suburbs--what emotion or rationale is causing so many of those voters to support Trump.  Is it greed?  

Also, Edsall doesn't take up the issue of how the Democratic Party has largely abandoned rural America--that is, they're not vying actively for the rural vote, a matter I document here.  What role does that phenomenon have in the rural shift to the GOP?