In general...up until that election cycle....both Sessions and Shelby are fake GOP guys....pretending to be Republicans. After the Reagan era, it was just about impossible to get elected to the Senate from the state as a Democrat....so you go out and ID yourself as GOP and just fake people out. Probably half the GOP in Montgomery fill the same type of shoes for the GOP. I think even the former governor (Bentley) was likely a Democratic pretending to be a Republican.
Who is it, in your world, that isn’t “pretending” to be a Republican?
I think it’s much deeper than that. Alabama politically has always been the Hillbillies versus the Planters.
Sessions, Shelby, Bentley... All Planter class—in other words, Elites.
Honestly, I can’t really say who the current Hillbilly, that is, Populists are. Can you? Maybe Winton Blount or Fob James, but they were 20 years ago.