"the disconnect between the hospitality and the hostility": yes! That's exactly what I was trying to get at, although you exoressed it more succinctly.

I'd agree with anyone who argued that the Southern hospitality is often a mask for the hostility that lies beneath. At the same time, I've seen many people at Alabama polls who appeared to be, say, single parents who brought preschoolers because couldn't afford babysitters.

My view of the hospitality/hostility split in such situations is that we shouldn't fault Southerners for hypocrisy if they feed those kids cookies or juice boxes after curbing their voting rights. We should say to Yankees: "Why aren't you offering food? You can see it's no fun for a parent to stand in line forever with a restless 3-year-old while waiting to vote."

You are also right about the rural/urban split: In my region, Mobile votes blue while its rural and suburban areas tend to vote red. Thanks so much for adding those important dimensions to the story.