Underexplored tension that the patron saint of the dirtbag left's "drop the woke, hammer on economics" is… neoliberal sellout Bill Clinton

That's what "it's the economy, stupid" was about – reminding him that Dems still had an edge on economic issues, especially after the Volcker shock, Reaganomics, the rusting of the Rust Belt, the S&L crash, the early 90s recession…

But that voters had decisively renounced them for 3 presidential elections over existential but not narrowly economic subjects – visions and policies around the basic structure and purpose of government, of crime, and the social and sexual and racial order.

And that Democratic positioning on the latter corresponded to a hegemony among a left-of-center "leadership class" and intensely engaged but narrow pressure groups but NOT among even regular Democratic voters as a whole. So by shedding (or at least "triangulating against") the latter, he could ride the former to victory.

(And then rig a national machine where left donors gave directly to the party and party-approved NGOs rather than funding rabble-rousers. In exchange for… benefits. My thinking on Epstein stuff is "if they were sweeping this under the rug, imagine what they were doing on building permits")

And it worked, and he was able to raise taxes, and the minimum wage, and at least try for nationalized healthcare (and, uh, NAFTA). And then the Republicans took both houses of Congress, which no Dem president had faced since Truman (who still had more New Deal/WWII authorities to employ). And even then you had things like the now-vilified crime bill, where both the "more cops on the street" and "midnight basketball" provisions were a return of federal grants to big cities, after they had been allowed to starve under Republicans.

Even in less "economic" more "identity", or at least minority rights areas, he saved Roe! Casey v. Planned Parenthood was expected to be the awaited repeal but it was just a narrowing, because Justices knew a 5-4 majority could revert back quickly and if constitutional law turned over with administrations like the Mexico City policy it would undermine Court legitimacy. Clinton shored up the court's left wing and held the line here. (Admittedly, replacing 2 retirements, though a Republican administration through 1999 would've outlived Blackmun) Effectively saved Affirmative Action too. DADT, the infrastructure for civil unions, more AIDS research funding might have been less than sought, but they were forward steps at all for a movement that was arguably politically further back on its heels in 1992 than 1978.

And this was all stuff that would not have happened during a Republican administration (well, the minimum wage and research funding I could see in a second term of Bush the Elder), such as if a Democrat did not win the 1992 election, as Clinton did on "it's the economy, stupid".