A harsh and pessimistic rebuttal to Maxmin and Woodward about Democrats and rural voters

I've been blogging recently about the book, Dirt Road Revival, by Maine State Senator Chloe Maxmin and her campaign manager, Canyon Woodward, who she met when they were students at Harvard.  Shortly after their essay appeared in the New York Times yesterday, Paul Waldman of the Washington Post wrote a rather a snarky rebuttal under the headline, "Democrats Understand their Rural Voter Problem Perfectly Well."  

I think Waldman makes some good points, for sure.  I tend to agree with him that the Democrats know what they're doing--they're choosing not to invest in rural places because they don't get as much bang for their buck there as in places where they easily canvas door to door.  They don't develop rural-specific materials for the same reason--insufficient return on investment. 

Waldman labels "deep and profound" the "factors that took rural America to the political place it is now."  He continues: 

The problem is that Republicans have succeeded in turning that “values” discussion into something much darker. This is why Donald Trump, who’s about as disconnected from rural people and their lives as any politician possibly could be, could boost the GOP’s margins among rural White voters.

Trump is a reactionary bigot whose unadorned xenophobia and racism found purchase in rural America, as it did in many places. But he also combined his politics of hate with a story about a rigged system that under both Democratic and Republican presidents produced a long decline in people’s circumstances and opportunities.

Trump lied to rural voters about how he’d help them (like telling people in West Virginia he’d bring back the coal jobs, which he didn’t). But they didn’t seem to mind, in part, because he tapped into their long-standing frustrations.

Both parts of Trumpism are important to his appeal in rural America, the ugly one and the legitimate one. And Republicans have successfully spun them into a furious identity politics, one that sees everything through the lens of us vs. them. That kind of politics has a natural draw for rural White people, whose history serves to create powerful feelings of identity that make them receptive to identity-based arguments.

Boy would I like to hear more about Waldman means there--what is this "natural draw for rural White people" and what is it about their history that creates "powerful feelings of identity that make them receptive to identity-based arguments"?  Is he arguing that rurality is a source of identity?  if so, he may be right, but that identity has, ironically, been enhanced by progressive urbanites' rural bashing in recent years.  If they see the world "through the lens of us vs them," why is that the case?  From what did that vantage point emerge?      

Do Maxmin and Woodward trade in rural stereotypes? Yes, of course, to at least some degree, like where they assert that "rural life is rooted in shared values of independence, common sense, tradition, frugality, community and hard work."  There is truth in this, but no such generalities will be correct all the time, and across all rural places.  (Remember the old adage among rural sociologists:  if you've seen one rural place, you've seen one rural place).  

But are rural voters as incorrigible--as much a lost cause--as Waldman suggests?  I don't think so.   That sounds to me like the speculation of a coastal elite--one who makes his living having strong, firm opinions, even if they (also) traffic in stereotypes.