My guess is that it isn't really about slavery or the actual Confederacy - it's just a proxy for "we want to be rich and for our region to be important again". Basically the same reason here in Poland people are digging through history, and probably why every place ever brings up their own things from the past.
Totally agree. At age 14 I moved from Michigan to small town southern Virginia, where I lived on and off for the next 20 years. So I have some sense of the contrast between north and south.
I think most Southerners don't reminisce for the "good old plantation days" as much for a sense of identity and a reason to be proud of who they are and respect for their heritage. It's not the Confederacy (per se) that they identify with; it's "being a southerner", and hailing from a specific state (though I suspect few could describe how their state's history is distinct from other southern states any more).
Tradition has long been much bigger in the South than the North. Southerner are less likely to move away from the South than Northerners move from the North. And I think social status is also more important there; honorific titles have long held more sway (e.g. Colonel Sanders), as has the tradition of serving in the military and hailing from a long military lineage.
IMHO, the Confederacy is mostly just a a "high water mark" for southern identity and independent spirit, but not especially meaningful in defining their values today.
