Speaking from my own experiences, it can be very difficult to move from a rural area to an urban job center if you are poor. For one, everything tends to be much more expensive. If you aren't particularly educated and don't really have any valuable skills, it's made even more difficult. If you add a substance abuse problem into the mix it becomes almost impossible.
This is true, but being honest if not polite: in many ways, considering poor rural whites stupid is an act of charitable kindness, even if it doesn't seem as such (the connection to your point will become apparent by the end).
To a complete outsider, the situation of poor rural whites summarizes as "sucks, and has sucked for 20-30 years".
One interpretation is that (on average) things are as they are due to lack of capability: in short, "those people" are sufficiently stupid--and consequently also ignorant--that it would be inappropriate to hold them fully-responsible for their decisions and circumstances (in the same way we don't for children or the mentally-handicapped).
An alternative interpretation is that (on average) things are as they are due to lack of character: in short, "those people" are sufficiently sound of mind and body that it would be inappropriate not to hold them fully-responsible for their decisions and circumstances (just as we do for everyone else).
As insulting and demeaning as it is to be thought stupid and ignorant, in this specific case being considered stupid and ignorant is, in fact, coming from a place of (unconscious) charity.
I'm deadly serious here.
Someone cruel and nasty will default to the second interpretation--your life sucks because you suck at life, and moreover it's your own fault for choosing to suck at life, despite having been perfectly capable of not sucking at it.
Someone kind-hearted and generous will default to looking for some other--any other--interpretation (many would say: "excuse"): perhaps your life sucks because of systemic discrimination and structural racism? perhaps your life sucks because of structural economic changes brought about due to unfair trade policies? perhaps your life sucks because your formative years were in a difficult and unstable environment, given inadequate education and surrounded by crumbling infrastructure? or, perhaps, your life sucks because you are simply stupid--and therefore also ignorant--and you thus are simply incapable of effectively navigating the modern world?...
So as patronizing and demeaning as it was to be thought of as stupid and backwards--and to know that's what you were seen as--at least it came from a place of kindness (if you had the eyes to see).
With love and sadness, I don't see that unconscious kindness surviving for much longer: rural america has now commanded the nation's attention and asked to be treated seriously, but will likely find that the consequence of asking the rest of the nation to treat rural america seriously will, eventually, shift the default coastal outlook away from the insulting "those poor morons, too stupid and ignorant to know how to help themselves" and towards "those useless trash, too lazy and prideful to help themselves"...and that this shift will be irreversible once it does get underway.
After all of which, it's time to return to your point: the challenges and difficulties you point out are real...and on top of that, success is not guaranteed, you can move to a larger city, wind up failing, and return home worse off for having even bothered to try.
But, to raise those challenges as anything other than common and mundane--difficult, yes, but similar in nature and magnitude to the problems we all face and deal with, in our own ways, such as our abilities are--is at once to illustrate "I am still living in a bubble" and to engage in what, outside that bubble, will likely come across as "special pleading": it's too hard, my circumstances are special...which I both understand and empathize with, but also makes it that much harder to grant as much respect as one might hope for from within said bubble.
Which is why I am pessimistic: asking for respect and to be taken seriously means people who used to look down upon rural people from a position of ignorance, but also (unconscious) charity and good will...those people will now take a closer look, and I think that will result not in increased respect, but only in harsh judgment and the loss of that former kindness and charity (as unrecognized and unconscious as it was).
My parents came to this country without speaking any English, my mother and I learned English together watching Mr. Rodgers, so I'm fully aware of the difficulties such circumstances present. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Mexican American immigrants and the amount of hardship they go through. I live in an area of LA county that's around 92% Hispanic, speaking from my experience here, I would argue that they aren't doing "just fine". The community in which I now live suffers from many of the same problems I witnessed among poor rural whites, namely domestic violence, drug/alcohol abuse, crime and gang violence, and a lack of educational achievement.
Your last comment seems needlessly cruel to me. I had a friend in Texas who's parents were drug addicts. His dad was killed in a car accident and sometime later his mom got a boyfriend who proceeded to rape him on a weekly basis from the time he was seven to around the time he was twelve and put into foster care. He ended up bouncing around foster homes, getting deeply involved in drugs until he finally enlisted in the Army, and after a few deployments and a stint at community college he eventually graduated college and is now a geologist.
I'm extremely proud and humbled by his accomplishments, but to be honest, if he had simply turned into a meth head and died under an overpass, I can't say I would be begrudge him considering the circumstances of his youth.
