Although modern politics has changed things, rednecks have historically been anti authority and pro labor. Building a rural/urban alliance like Bill Clinton did would genuinely create an entirely new era of politics that would be friendly to liberal leftist ideologies.
Hicks and rednecks aren’t the same thing, although there is enough overlap. And no, the hick has usually been on the wrong side of history. In my experience (born and raised in the rural South) they’re stupid, uneducated, cruel, greedy, have very little experience, and are more authoritarian than not.