You don't get to claim the moral high ground and use the tactics of the opposition at the same time.
Clinton largely campaigned on shame and fear, and the midwest felt too left behind to care about that.
However, it raises an excellent point. The United States is not going to get anywhere if half the country looks down on the other half as a bunch of plebs, and in response the "plebs" disdain the elites. (I understand that this is a gross simplification, but I have seen this attitude often enough that it is significant).
For me, the article was about the need for mutual respect.
Ironically, the people who are going to take it most directly in the tuckus, are the people who voted Trump.
I don't even live in America, so it's not like I consider myself an American liberal. In fact, in my country, the Liberal Party are the conservatives, and being centre-left, I wouldn't identify with them either.