Depends. For lots of my Southern family, oldschool racist and Confederate roots are deep, and tied to church culture. And I've seen examples outside of that where things are 'learned,' like a macho, sexist, homophobe jerk kinda ex-friend who's Dad was the same.

Also, talk radio was like this long before Fox got so extreme. Rush Limbaugh was huge, people like him were a staple across the rural US and can still be heard if you tune in.

In the richer eschelons (like in my private school), libertarian-mindedness is more common, and extreme social conservatism bleeds in from there, as counterintuitive as that seems.

In other words, the Fox environment has been cooking for decades (if not a centuries), and I agree: they're catering to (and stoking) the market that's already there.