Nathan:
> So the focus away from economic issues is not just a result of corporate
> money but of a cultural ballast within the overall progressive movement as
> well.
-Well said. However, that "cultural ballast" goes often unnoticed or even is -deliberately swept under the rug in many progressive circles, including this -one...Evidently, lefties hate to -part with their delusions about uniting the working class and even all the -people in the world.
Although you may be missing my emphasis. The problem is not that working class voters are divided by cultural issues; tensions are endemic in all sorts of groupings, whether class or race or gender.
The problem is that a lot of progressives aren't really even trying to bridge the cultural gap through more emphasis on the economic issues that would pull some of those cultural conservatives to their side.
What I mean is that you have to divide working class cultural conservatives into two groups. One values cultural issues like abortion so highly that they vote solely on those issues, and no appeal will move them. That group progressive coalitions have to write off.
But there is another group that will support a progressive coalition, even one that largely supports abortions rights and so on, because they value progressive economic issues more than the cultural ones. But for them to support progressives, they need to hear the economic issues front and center. Otherwise, if they don't think voting progressive will get economically progressive change, they'll vote conservative to get their second-choice cultural conservative preferences.
Nathan