[chipotle_coyote]

Or alternatively, they believe that it's in the collective best interest of the country and future generations to elect candidates who are proposing stronger regulation to address income equality, rather than candidates who propose that income equality either doesn't exist, doesn't matter, or will sort itself out without regulation.

Your phrasing suggests that you think someone like me who believes in the strong regulation approach is just "virtue signaling," but I would suggest that it's because I've looked back at the US in the last century and couldn't help but observe that there's a strong and consistent correlation between market regulation and the economic success of the lower-to-middle class. Income inequality dropped dramatically with the New Deal, the notional "American Dream" largely came about in the post-WWII economy -- and the move toward radical deregulation and trickle-down economics in the 1980s coincides with a sharp rise in income inequality, a concentration of wealth at the highest ends, and dramatic fraying of safety nets for the lowest ends. It is not unreasonable to look at all that and say, "Hey, maybe there was something to that whole 'market regulation' thing after all."