Yes, indeed. I've met people who would qualify as rednecks, parents of friends, but they were deeply nice people who shared a meal or two and sang some bluegrass.
The term now means something else. It is used in a derogatory sense within many parts of the US and almost everywhere outside.
Thanks for confirming.
Nowadays, a redneck is a maga idiot, a proudly uneducated and uncouth person, a subscriber to a perverse version of Christianity (well, some kind of cult that has nothing to do with Christianity), someone who has more guns than friends, a person who doesn't drive any vehicle unless it consumes a huge amount of energy, an American-English speaker who can't write or speak properly, someone who thinks that nothing exists outside his village, one who spends his time in shopping malls and gas stations, someone who is gullible and believes in anything a dictator utters, a person who never questions anything except the price of gas, someone who thinks that democracy means owning guns, one who does not have a sense of humanity, of justice, of respect for women, of existence of other cultures .... I'm tired to go on... I'll stop here.
phart is an embodiment of all of the above. He's the soul and flesh of redneckness.