As for your first point, he's put up with Lars Ulrich for almost 40 years now. If that's not tolerance I don't know what is.
For point 2, decrying a large portion of the country as "Redneck America(tm)" sounds like the exact type of thing Hetfield is talking about, the same as your dismissive "thanks" at the end of point 1. They sold out with the black album in 91 anyway, there was nothing "redneck" about that album.
This comes from the fan reaction directly to "Load", specifically. A GREAT deal of Metallica's then-current fanbase was incredibly pissed off.
Metallica, I am sure, cried all the way to the bank. I am reminded of Neal Schon from Journey (paraphrased): "Everybody says we sold out. We played prog rock for how long and where did it get us? We write a couple pop ballads and suddenly we're drowning in money and swimming in women. Did we sell out? Damn straight we did and I have nothing to apologize for."
And maybe James Hetfield really believes what he is saying, and maybe he doesn't. For the amount of money he gets paid, you could get me to say quite lot--some of which I might even believe after a while.
Maybe I'm overly cynical, but the successful people in the music business all understand that they are in the business, first, of making music, second. So, I'm going to regard any "public persona" through the lens of being a carefully crafted marketing construct.