As a European it was incomprehensible to me why anyone would vote for trump as I had only received the straw man version of Trump through my local media. But when traveling the U.S. early 2016 I had the good fortune of spending a few hours on a bus with two trump voters and having them explain their hopes for a trump presidency, and it no longer seemed irrational. The hope that having no loyalties or obligations to the political powers that be he could actually have policies which benefited regular people seemed reasonable. There is a fair argument to be made his actual economic policies have indeed mostly benefited Americans, so someone voting just based on the economy would not be irrational in choosing Trump.
Still, he’s Donald Trump, and a bully. I don’t think I could ever be convinced to ignore all the other stuff to the degree of voting for him. I can understand those who outright dismiss him and anyone aligned with him without seriously trying to engage with their arguments.
The Democratic Party didn't abandon labor. Labor and the electorate abandoned the Democratic Party. Starved for funding and votes, the Democratic Party moved right and embraced neoliberalism. Mondale was pro-labor. He was crushed by Reagan in 1984.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_Council
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States...
https://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/22/magazine/labor-s-gamble-o...
In any case, Biden was called a socialist before he picked his VP. e.g.
https://mobile.twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1241717700...
A good phrase I ran into is "strategic empathy". Like Sun Tzu teaches:
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
Sadly, humans seem allergic to this kind of thinking. As Orwell writes in "Notes on Nationalism":
"The nationalist does not go on the principle of simply ganging up with the strongest side. On the contrary, having picked his side, he persuades himself that it is the strongest, and is able to stick to his belief even when the facts are overwhelmingly against him. Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception. Every nationalist is capable of the most flagrant dishonesty, but he is also – since he is conscious of serving something bigger than himself – unshakeably certain of being in the right."
The smart (if mistaken) reasons to vote Trump were always trade and the Democratic Party's abandonment of Labor.
And Republicans, on the other hand, who think Biden is a socialist are delusional.
It's possible, though, that people aren't as dumb as they seem. For an individual, pretending not to empathize with the opposition is probably safer in a tribalized society. So perhaps that's what we're really witnessing.