For those who don’t read the article:
The author criticizes another author’s book that assumes all rural whites are racist/homophobe/etc. rubes who vote Republican because they are racist/homophobe/etc. rubes.
The author accepts the premise that they are all racist/homophobe/etc. rubes but says they also vote Republican because of their location and the resulting tendency to be self-reliant.
The author also points out that rural whites are fools who don’t understand that Democrat policies are really good for them.
(How did I do at summarizing?)
You got it fairly correct. The author of the Politico article takes a view that I loosely call the Jane Goodall approach—largely academic, looking at fellow humans like one would observe animals at the zoo.