I think it has to do with the degree to which most leftists self-segregate themselves into an ideological bubble.  If one lacks any real personal connections to ordinary, relatively apolitical, or relatively conservative (or even just non-radical) people, one is likely to have a distorted view of politics,  and eventually arrive at a frustrated loathing of all those outside one's bubble whose political behavior seems mystifying and horrifying (which it is, in a sense, but... if we hold the ideals we do, we must believe our fellow creatures are more than herds of bleating ignorant sheep).  I think if most leftists had friends, co-workers, partners, co-congregants and fellow members of social circles and organizations whose political leanings better reflected those of society at large, we as a movement would be better able to 'move' the public on more issues, and have a more realstic sense of what will happen and what can be changed and how.  Not that transformative, sustaining vision is unimportant, but rather, we can't there from here erecting a prefigurative myopiatopia around us. In the past this sense would motivate me to try to shock my fellow travellers with extreme sorts of pronunciations like that the left won't get anywhere until its adherents are deported from the bay area, new york and college towns, and scattered across the land to live in inner-ring suburbs and exurbs and neighborhoods and the nameless cookie cutter apartment buildings of decatur, dayton, new haven, houston, charlotte, phoenix and fort wayne.  But really, we just to make an effort to socialize broadly, value neighbors of all political orientations as individuals with contradictions just like us, and participate in social institutions where our views are present in reasonable proportion to their presence in working peoples society at large.  I think it would help. <div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> > There seems to be a whole lot of left wing arrogance > and condescension going around. You guys really hate > the working class, don't you? There _are_ really > privileged Americans, and most of them are white, but > they are not anywhere near 35% of the population, and > they are far too sophisticated to listen to Rush or > watch Faux. Those people think that Rush-Faux are > crude and vulgar. They read the NYT, the WSJ, the FT, > watch CNN, and listen to NPR because they think > commercials are crass. That stated, too many whites vote against their own self interests but this doesn't make me hate them. It does confuse the hell out of me however. I have no idea how to reach them. In almost all one on one conversations it's pretty easy to get them to admit to very progressive ideas. How to get them to act on them is beyond me. *************************************** </blockquote></div>