Rural whites don’t protest. But the group of people who oppose Wall Street and the WTO and private equity are rural whites and young urbanites. If you’re trying to build a coalition to oppose those things those are the people you need to pull together (which Obama did in 2008). A study showed that over half the people who fit the profile of a “Trump Republican” (versus a Romney Republican) actually voted Democrat before 2016.
> I don't really understand the point you're trying to make here.
By moving to the left on social issues Democrats make a deliberate choice to abandon parts of their coalition opposed to fighting wealth inequality—including racial wealth inequality—and replace them with groups that benefit from and perpetuate it.
Put differently, the people who actually control the levels of systemic racism, i.e. structural economic and social disparities, have a tremendous interest in keeping minorities focused on the individual racist attitudes of rural and working class white people.
This is the most economically left Democratic party we have had since Roosevelt. It's far to the left of Obama's. And Clinton, no wokescold himself, served two terms with a Democratic party that deliberately tacked to the right on economics without giving up anything to wokeism. I don't think this analysis holds together.
I get what you're trying to say, that there's a tradeoff between cultural issues and economic issues. My problem is that you haven't provided evidence that the tradeoff exists or is meaningful.
I don't really understand the point you're trying to make here. It doesn't take a social scientist to figure out what's going on in West Virginia. West Virginia is East Wyoming. It's overwhelmingly white, has no urban centers, and is starkly less educated than Iowa (itself a heavy lift for the Democratic party). Your point is what? That the parties have polarized on education? Yes, I think we've priced that in now.
The last Democratic Presidential candidate who took West Virginia was Bill Clinton. There were still Dixiecrats in the party when he won it. It's a red state; in fact, it's the second reddest state in the union. Even Alabama sends a Democrat to the House. Not WV. Capito slaughtered Swearengin in 2020 i in every county in the state.
What that tells us about Democratic attitudes towards banks is precisely zero. Get rid of Republic Senate votes in the south and we'd have broken up the major investment banks (I don't think that would have been a good thing).