Absolutely, rural Americans are "racist" in the sense of not using approved language about people. On the other hand, that is a somewhat different thing than actually hating or despising people because of their skin color (etc).
This article was mentioned in previous HN posts:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-on...
And I think this passage explains this point:
If you'd asked me at the time, I'd have said the fear and hatred wasn't of people with brown skin, but of that specific tribe they have in Chicago -- you know, the guys with the weird slang, music and clothes, the dope fiends who murder everyone they see. It was all part of the bizarro nature of the cities, as perceived from afar -- a combination of hyper-aggressive savages and frivolous white elites. Their ways are strange. And it wasn't like pop culture was trying to talk me out of it...
There are clearly still a lot of terrible people, and they love it that Trump won. They feel that this result proved them right, and allows them to act out their bigotry.
These people certainly do exist, but not nearly in the numbers the media portrays them to. If so, how did we elect a black man twice and just miss electing a woman to the highest office in the land? I refuse to believe the narrative about how racist rural America is.
And to the extent there is racism in rural America I posit a good portion of it is driven by folks looking for someone to blame for their currently undesirable status in the global economy.
If NY and CA were struggling, all the racists would be on the coasts and not in WI, MI, and OH, etc.