This piece looks at the data that turns our understanding of elections on its head. Typically, with an incumbent on the ballot, the election turns into a referendum on the economy. If the economy is doing well, the incumbent gets re-elected, whereas if it's going poorly, the incumbent loses (Hoover, Carter Bush 41).
The data suggest strongly that counties that are doing well economically voted for Biden, whereas struggling counties went for Trump. The piece notes that Biden counties are filled with college educated workers in growth industries, whereas Trump counties are filled with non-college Whites who feel their economic power drifting away.
The evidence is pretty clear, in my view, that what we are seeing is less a divorce of economics from politics and more the increasing marriage of politics to culture. Rural voters voted for Trump because he manifests their grievances about a changing cultural landscape that, yes, includes economics, but isn't tied to economic well-being. Urban and suburban voters are perched atop Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and are unwilling to live in a country that is manifestly cruel and unjust.
The equation of economic well-being and support for the incumbent is simply not as relevant. Especially when those rural voters skew heavily towards evangelical Christianity.
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