Is white working-class racism an overstated problem?

Political success depends upon donations from wealthy purposeful groups.

In pandering to Wall St donors, are the US Democrats determined to point to something other than the socially-useless brutality of markets as reasons why voters (many of whom are actually socially liberal) vote against them?

From here:

"....most people assume layoffs are just cold hard economic reality, the unavoidable result of market forces taking their toll on uncompetitive businesses. But it’s not always true. Healthy companies will cut jobs just to up share prices for executives, who increasingly are compensated in company equity. Leopold cites a stat saying 85% of executive compensation comes in the form of stock awards, creating massive incentives to spend on buybacks. I’ve seen both higher and lower numbers, but even the low end (Harvard Business Review put the number at 59% globally and 75% in “the Americas”) is significant.

In the end, Leopold posits that while Democratic voters believe they need to shift to more illiberal positions to win working class voters, they’d more likely need to emphasize mass layoffs as a root of rural anger, which would force them to choose between Wall Street donors and rural votes."

As a sidebar question, I wonder if there are plenty of people who actually hold socially-liberal attitudes themselves, but regard themselves as part of a tribe that ostensibly doesn't?