Though born in a sizable city, Portland, Oregon, I am grateful to have been raised in the country. Even when we moved back to Portland while I was in Junior High School, it was not Portland per se, but a rural suburb. The sense of connection to the land and love for it that I grew up with have only been reinforced by the intervening years and travels. It is at least partly a sense of reverence and appreciation for God’s creations, but it is also an appreciation for the character that country life fosters. Like most things, this turns out to have political implications as well.

Victor Davis Hanson explored this concept in an essay linked below. It is well worth reading, not just for the political explanation, but also for the historical references:

http://www.city-journal.org:8080/html/trump-and-american-divide-14944.html