There’s a quote from the movie Vengeance that I think sums it up well.
It’s not necessarily that people in rural areas are dumb. It’s that they’re creative people who don’t have any outlets, so they get so caught up in the conspiracies because they’re better than the alternative (nothing).
Which of course itself is a byproduct of anti-intellectualism, I think it is something that could be solved with support for education and extracurriculars, but it’s very much a cultural issue that needs to be addressed by propping up citizens intellectual interests instead of tearing them away.