Yes, culture war issues are used by both the right and the pseudo-left to avoid talking about economic issues. As soon as you bring up race, abortion, or homose

Yes, culture war issues are used by both the right and the pseudo-left to avoid talking about economic issues. As soon as you bring up race, abortion, or homosexuality, it sucks all the air out of the room and everyone stops talking about unfair trade policy, unfair and in some cases outright regressive taxation, crumbling infrastructure, growing monopolies, wage stagnation, or the exploding costs of health care, real estate, and tuition. The things people talk about and get emotional about are the things that sway elections, and therefore these are the topics politicians focus on. I don't think you have to imagine some sophisticated conspiracy to sideline economic issues... politicians just don't pay much attention to them because their constituents aren't bringing them up. Meanwhile their donors have a clear position in favor of the status quo, so that ends up being their economic agenda by default. Look at how charged the Supreme Court battle is, which is mostly about abortion, and compare that to the complete lack of interest shown by politicians on either side regarding our record unemployment numbers or the COVID driven collapse of small businesses across the USA. We are in the midst of a small local business holocaust in the USA and a profound consolidation of corporate "big chain" control over local economies, and not a word... we are too busy screaming about Ginsburg's replacement. I am not saying those "culture war" issues don't matter. Clearly they matter a lot to some people in very real ways. I'm just pointing out how they dominate the political discourse and prevent other issues from being debated. The economic and operational issues I listed above arguably affect more people than most of the culture war issues, and the Venn diagrams overlap quite a bit too. Gay rights mostly affects gay people, but wage stagnation affects everyone including gay people.