They don't see themselves that way. So when you accuse them of being these terrible things, they resent you. And if they resent you, they are not under any circumstances going to vote for you, even if it might be to their benefit in reality.
We could debate for a long time exactly how we got here, and everyone thinks the other side is entirely responsible.
The racism rhetoric isn't meant to appeal to the rural poor or anyone with Real Problems(TM).
Black, white or neon green if you're living paycheck to paycheck you have more important things to care about than whether someone else thinks your a BadThingOfTheDay-ist. You're not gonna vote for someone promising to solve your image problem. You're gonna vote for someone promising to solve your real problems (unless their proposed solution is wildly incompatible with your ideology)
The racism rhetoric is designed to appeal to the suburban white collar class who doesn't have many big pressing day to day problems. If you convince them people who vote against you are racists (which some of them probably already believe at least a little bit) they will vote for you because they don't wanna be called racists and they don't have enough real problems so they care about things like that.
It's a nice thought to want to pretend all the problems of poor people are the same regardless of color but it's not true. I have multiple family members that were alive during Jim Crow and had to go-to the segregated black schools. Those people protesting integration as an example didn't just disappear and their opinions didn't either even though America has tried to pretend they have.
Those people exist and I am sympathetic to their plight but they are not the target demographic that politicians are trying to convert using the racism rhetoric. They were mostly already voting for the people pumping out the racism rhetoric. The fact that they may see those politicians as further allies is just a secondary or tertiary bonus.
You need to look at this from the perspective of a political strategist with a moral compass that makes Nixon look like Jesus.
That is the single best piece of advice in this entire thread. I will probably end up paraphrasing this at some point, because it drives the point home pretty effectively.
There are plenty of people who will tell you to go fuck yourself if you insinuate that you look down on them before offering what they perceive to be a hand out. I personally know many people who don't even bother applying to government programs they qualify for because they view it as humiliating or beneath them, and that's without people shit talking them. Not everything is purely about money.
Also to suggest that the left is solving the problems of the right is somewhat disingenuous. The true problems of the right are largely unsolvable. We're never going to make small farming communities matter again; we're never going to bring back dignity to unskilled labor; we're never going to bring back manufacturing to the degree where manufacturing jobs yield middle class lifestyles; we're never going to change our value systems back to what they used to be; etc. Money largely can't solve any of those problems.
That's exactly what I meant by the bit in parenthesis.
>is solving the problems of the right is somewhat disingenuous.
A healthcare solution that doesn't suck (regardless of which side of the isle it comes from) would help left and right alike. I agree with you on all that other stuff. The 50s aren't coming back.