As someone who lives in a rural area, I'd say it's because they see their way of life under siege. In this context that means they disapprove of the incursion of the urban definition of empathy. Rural inhabitants consider themselves the ones with "genuine" empathy, based primarily on the foundation of more authentic personal connections. Urbanites (of which I've also been) tend to look towards the big hand of government as a force to affect social change, ideally of the uplifting variety. Rural inhabitants see such structures as a faceless machine, grinding their fragile way of life into the ground with one-size-fits-all algorithms.

There's a fundamental disconnect between the reality models of the two groups. This is also why you see them as devoid of empathy.