Do you honestly believe that racism plays no part in the politics of poor rural whites? Do you think these often ignorant, poorly-educated poor whites would be up in arms against Obama if he were white? Would they be making their illiterate non-sequitur signs to protest a white Democrat who was implementing the exact same policies?
Huh? Once again, absolutely nothing that I (or any other critics of the OP) have said implies that many poor rural white conservatives are not racist, nor that their racism doesn't impact some of their politics. That isn't the issue. OF course the level of vitriol in many of their anti-Obama comments are heightened by racism. But they were economic conservatives ranting about communists and socialists long before Obama, and no matter the race of the "liberals" promoting policies they viewed as such. The issue is whether their support for free market and protect-the-rich policies is causally rooted in a desire to keep black people down. IT isn't implausible that their is some degree of influence in that direction, but it is more plausible that a combination of the many other causal accounts explains more of the co-occurrence of economic conservatism and racist among rural poor whites.
Extreme free market faith requires adopting racism to rationalize racial inequalities in outcomes, and both views are defined by forms of hierarchical inequalities that constitute simplistic order that some people (especially not very bright people) are drawn to. It is far more likely that some combination of these are the explanation and that a simplistic racism --> economic conservatism account (which is absolutely what Athena claimed) is rather rare.
