Yeah, that's utter horsecrap. The South was just as likely to elect Big Gubmint Democrats decades ago as anywhere else. Look at the infamous Mississippi Democrat Senator Theodore Bilbo. He was a big time New Dealer along with being an epic-level racist. My Congressional district has elected mostly left-wing or national Democrats for most of the 20th century. One became Majority Leader & Speaker (Jo Byrns), another (J. Percy Priest) became Majority Whip. When Priest died, a center-right Democrat won to succeed him (Carlton Loser) and it upset the local Dems enough that when Loser beat left-winger Richard Fulton in the primary (claiming voter fraud), Fulton ran as an "Independent (Leftist) Democrat" to take the seat from Loser in the general. So it's been 58 years since a non-leftist has won here. And, of course, we had the two left-wing Senators Albert Gore, Sr. and Estes Kefauver. So that "big lie" deserves a derisive laugh in the face to anyone who repeats it.
As has been shown repeatedly: the Confederate States of America were more limiting of freedoms of WHITES than the Union-—CSA had more confiscation, more inflation, more drafting (but with more political exemptions), higher taxes, embargoed ALL cotton so farmers couldn’t see it; more censorship and of course total slavery for 1/3 of the southern population.
The South was no bastion of freedom.