>My goal is to bring a sense of empathy to people that don't understand these issues due to lack of contact with people going through them.
IMHO, you're doing a terrible job in this thread. You seem convinced that urbanites hate rural folk for who they are, and not what they have done and said.
And you are cherry picking facts and giving tenuous explanations for rural support for issues. It's laughably disingenuous to suggest that rural america supported Trump's wall because of heroin. TBH, you sound like part of the rural problem - too willing to fish around for a more palatable explanation when a fact doesn't reflect favourably on your in-group.