Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, "business as usual" has led working class (and middle class) america to wage stagnation, increasingly worse jobs, de-industrialization, decline of small towns, meth/heroin rise, and such, plus wars mainly using poor rural people as fodder, and other such niceties. Plus coastal elites (including non-elites who still identify as hollier-than the plebs in the fly-over country) sneering at them. The glorious march…
Kind of a good take, but these points actually makes their attitude even stranger: they are not afraid of neoliberalism, which is the defacto economic position of both the left and the right, but of "communism." Biden is a "communist," or "godless," or "anti-American." What do these statements actually mean? You can argue that their feelings of economic greivance make sense--but their voting habits are a rejection of…
They didn't attack Biden as being those things. They attacked Biden for being old, not entirely there, and weak barrier against the radical elements of the Democratic Party. For example Karen Bass, who was on Biden's VP shortlist, had a bunch of communist ties: https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/karen-bass-vice-presiden...
> First reported were her ill-chosen words upon the death of Fidel Castro in 2016, she opined, that “the passing of the Comandante en Jefe is a great loss to the people of Cuba.” Ouch! But politically survivable.
> Far more damaging was news that that Bass first visited the island while, in college, at age 19, in 1973 with the Venceremos Brigade, a group popular with leftwing student radicals and social progressives that organized and ferried Americans to Cuba to cut sugar cane and build homes—in defiance of the U.S. Embargo and policy. She would take eight trips with the Brigade during the 1970s alone
As to "anti-American" many on the left embraced taking the name of founding fathers off of school buildings. My magnet high school in Virginia is named after Thomas Jefferson and there has been an effort to rename it. Even Abraham Lincoln has been indicted (if not yet convicted): https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/12/20/fac....
Taking Thomas Jefferson's name off a school building is a declaration of war to conservatives. They believe that civilization is a product of history and tradition and practice, not abstract principles. The idea you can "keep the good things Jefferson believed" while ditching the historical figure himself is something that makes no sense to them. It'd be like taking Jesus out of the Bible.
> You can argue that their feelings of economic greivance make sense--but their voting habits are a rejection of policies like universal healthcare (which would benefit the vast majority of them) because "socialism."
Trump voters already have healthcare. They're disproportionately likely to be folks who bear greater burdens under the ACA--like small business owners. Or the majority of people who are happy with their private health insurance.
More generally, the Republican Party is a coalition of social conservatives (some of whom are quite economically liberal) and economic conservatives. Voting Democrat wouldn't make any sense for them, especially because, as you observe, the Democratic Party is staunchly neo-liberal as well. I recall listening to interviews with Trump voters around Scranton (where Joe Biden was born). Folks were talking about how they were multi-generational Democratic voters, but were disillusioned by Democrats' support for NAFTA, etc. If Democrats chose to prioritize social liberalism and economic neo-liberalism it makes totally sense for those folks to vote Republican.