There are some other things transpiring in American politics right now. But we must note that Democratic leaders are now unabashedly stating what Bernie Sanders supporters said over and over in 2020: the party pushed Joe Biden primarily to stop Bernie.
I don’t think you’ve ever spent much time in the rust belt if you think that region of Trump country wouldn’t have a very negative knee-jerk reaction to just the simple word. They very much like the idea of income inequality, the whole “if I work hard enough, I can be Jeff Bezos too” idea. They do not understand things like systemic advantage, sounds too woke.
And all we have to do to get them to vote for us is to move to the right.
That has a limit, as Joe Manchin found out.