TL;DR version: "this half of the country thinks differently from me; they're such aberrations! Obviously America would be way better and more normal (read: identical to my particular preferences) if they were all gone."

Seems as though the author has had this particular variety of animosity/regional-bigotry for a while now, too:

> Michael Lind is a contributing editor to Politico Magazine and author of Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics.

I don't expect much from Politico, but this is pretty low even for them.