>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?

Since the elites that push them over and throw them to the dustbins of history as deplorables are mostly Democratic, and the elites that hypocrically placate to them as lip service are mostly Republican (hypocritically since both serve the same neoliberal agenda), those masses confuse their liberalism (left-leaning-ness) as a reason that they hurt them.

That the Democrat elites and coastal pundits also hate their (the fly-over peoples) guts and everything they stand for culturally (e.g. them being more conservative wrt tradition, family, etc.), and diss them from a left/socialist point of view is also another reason for those masses to consider that "socialism" is their enemy.

Because for them socialism is not some benevolent Swedish style state socialism that caters to their needs, or old-style workers-first aid, but superficial cultural "socialism" with "fuck these backwards people" at its mast flag combined with neoliberal policies.

If the Democrats actually catered to their needs (rural growth, working/middle class jobs, wage stagnation, skyrocketing college, health costs, etc) and also had a sincere dialogue about those people's values (instead of pushing the latest SJW cause as if it's something everybody should get on with pronto or they are Hitler -- when in reality it's things not even the foremost leftists in the US championed just 20 or 30 years ago, never mind the Democrats themselves. Heck, Obama himself was publicly against something as inoffensive as gay marriage back in the day iirc, never mind other modern causes) and didn't consider them all backwards rednecks that should be put into re-education camps, the same people would change their mind about "socialism" and such.

But instead the Democrats publicly deplore them, and use those social justice causes as a substitute for real progressive policies (economic, for peace, for curbing big tech, etc.).

>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."

From what I've read and discussed with some people there - haven't delved much into it to read the details - the ACA mostly benefited the very poor and welfare, while did two things for working class and middle class people: it increased their healthcare costs and also (I see mentioned) make them not able to keep the doctors they used to see.

If true, this is not a case of those masses "voting against their interests", but the other side confusing the very poor/welfare recipients etc (who assumedly did benefit from ACA) with the working/lower middle class (who was hurt by it), and wondering why the latter don't jump with joy about ACA.

>What will four more years of Republican tax cuts coupled with absurd austerity politics get them? Biden is worse than this because...?

To my eyes both parties are neoliberal and thus bad.

That said, Trump (not the GOP) term was marked by less (no?) wars and hawkish behavior (good for the globe at large) and a promise to scale-back American "democracy export business" (e.g. war).

That alone, and thus hundreds of thousands not impacted by that, is better than anything we could see coming from legendarily hawkish Hillary, in my book. With regards to Biden, let's see.

Trump also spoke against outsourcing everything and about rampant globalism, which, last time I checked (I'm old) it was one of the concerns of our side (the leftists), people fought in Seattle protests, Genova protests, etc. Suddenly, people on the left seem to consider this to have gone out of style, just out of partisanship to the Democrats against Trump.

As for domestically, all the numbers I've seen put the number of e.g. blacks shot by cops as the same during the Obama years, and the numbers of migrants deported roughly the same as well. So on that front, I see more partisanship and cant, than actual difference.