Republicans used to back Ukraine. Then came middle fingers in Alabama.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — In the early days, long before Russia’s war entered its third year, drivers honked and smiled when Natalia Reznick stood by the roadside holding her handmade sign: “Support Ukraine.”

Then one afternoon in November, a man lowered his truck window and flipped her off.

She might have dismissed that as a fluke if, a few weeks later, another man hadn’t approached her booth in a Trader Joe’s parking lot and asked, “Haven’t we given you enough money?”