Alabama has always been an outlier, and doesn't represent the GOP as a whole. You're ascribing by implication to the entire population of Republicans nationally attitudes that are peculiar--and I use the word deliberately--to Alabama. And always have been. Of all the haters on the right, Alabamians have led the baying pack since the Civil War, hating the United States with a burning passion.

The whole point of electing Judge Roy Moore to the United States Senate is to take another dump on the United States. In this respect, Alabama's part of a larger Southern tradition of dumping on America through the people they send to Washington; see also Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms to take the first two to come to mind. Hatred and a burning desire for revenge is an important part of Southern Heritage.

I still think you're overcomplicating this, RL. Focus on the hate as the Grand Unified Theory of Republicanism. It's political mitochlorians that bind all wingnuts to a common hatred. Or to put it plainer, these attitudes are the desired outcome of decades of indoctrination. Their plan is working.