As someone who also grew up in rural, small-town NC (in the foothills) I can say that this is also 100% my experience in dealing with working-class rural white Trumpers and Republicans generally. My parents and some relatives still live in my old hometown, and so I still have frequent contact with these people. And they do see themselves as kindly people who love to help their neighbors - as long as said neighbors look like them and think like them and come from the same demographic group (tribe, really) as they are. Once you move beyond that group, though, their compassion and concern quickly disappears. The community I grew up in was remarkably homogeneous - nearly all white, native-born (as in born and raised in that area), Baptist, and with few outsiders of any kind. And those are the people they care about and are comfortable being with. Once you move beyond that narrow group their friendliness and interest tends to evaporate and is replaced by suspicion, awkwardness, and even fear. And yes, they do talk often (usually based on what they see and hear on Fox News) about how dangerous and fearsome the world outside their little community or region is - too many immigrants and minorities and people who are not like them, nobody goes to church apparently, big cities are dangerous, crime-ridden hellholes, and so on. And "those people" need to be kept under control by police and have their welfare cut because they're living it up on welfare while good people like them are struggling to get by. It's like a broken record, really.