Rustbeltism is an electoral form of picking up pennies in front of a steamroller.
Sooner or later you WILL get punished for slighting growing areas and fetishizing shrinking ones.
I’ve long said this is the future
The GOP trading the high growth South for moribund Midwest is doubly bad for them b/c it will *not* force them to meet ever evolving electorate represented in Sunbelt…but again retreat to more narrow things that MAYBE work in MI/WI/OH/NH