Mr. Risen, author of the piece you cite, indeed, notes that Shafer credits economic issues, as well as racial, contributed to the movement of Southerners to the GOP.  Here's another interesting comment from his writings.  "As he often does, President Trump, in saying something very wrong, inadvertently got something very right when he said that Confederate statues are a part of our culture. I imagine he meant that they celebrate Lee’s and Forrest’s contributions to America, whatever those were. That is rubbish. But he was right in a different way. The statues are only the most obvious instances of a deep, stubborn reality about the South. The symbols of the Confederacy, and therefore of white supremacy, are everywhere a part of life, ingrained in commutes and school schedules and college applications, as seemingly natural and pervasive as water, so that you never think to do anything about them. It’s time that changed."  Don't you agree it's time to eradicate racism?  Gary Crum