They can't because everything about the contemporary Democratic Party seeths with disdain and contempt for rural people. You can't have a liberal media/ruling class that openly ridicules "small town" values and takes aim at rural conservatives (like Bill Maher and Chelsea Handler have been doing for decades) and not expect it to affect Democrats' electoral chances in the Heartland. The change that happened during the Obama years was two-fold: the "Jon Stewart" generation of Democratic staffers and activists (college kids of the 1990s/2000s, basically) came into professional politics, and Democratic leadership caved to their worst instincts in painting their Tea Party opposition as "rubeish" yokels.
The Tea Party painted themselves as rubeish yokels when they showed up in droves to protest “fascist socialism” they knew nothing about thanks to a healthcare policy that disproportionately benefited them because it was the work of a black man who they hung in effigy.
“StOp cAlLing Us StUpiD aNd RaCiSt” they say. Well, maybe stop being stupid and racist? Just a thought.
And the swipe at Bill Maher is especially hilarious, as he’s one of the few liberal celebrities who frequently performs in deep red areas, and he mocks his own side for being “woke” more often these days than he bothers to mock rednecks. The obsession with celebrities and paranoid fear that these “elites” are looking down on you all the time is typical of Republicans, though.
In any case, living in a rural area is no excuse for being ignorant let alone, quite frankly, unapologetically stupid as is often the case. I say this as someone from a pretty red state with some pretty rural roots. There are plenty of informed, intelligent people in these places who don’t blame a shadowy cabal of “librul elites” for every misfortune in their lives, even if they are a minority these days.
I mean, what happened to self-responsibility? What happened to pulling yourself up by your bootstraps? Most of all, what happened to “facts don’t care about your feelings?” Your core argument is essentially “Liberals shouldn’t dare hurt our feelings and call us stupid, otherwise we just might prove them right!” Think about how... stupid that argument is.
