What happens if radicals lefties and the media make fun of ordinary people, or rural working class people? Well, only that they confirm their smug prejudices at the expense of those less well off than themselves, you might think. But then there is the problem that if radicals cannot speak to working class aspirations, then reactionaries will. What is the horrible thing that will happen if you look down your noses at Alaskan moose hunters, and red-necked mid-westerners? Only that they will vote McCain in, and you will be stuck with Sarah Palin's politics.
It does not mean that you have to pander to religious sentiment, or to ultra-patriotic prejudices. But if radical politics has a future it has to give a better answer to the problems that give rise to those fantasy solutions of the right. When you start saying 'fuck the voters' that generally indicates that you are on a road to nowhere.
Doug says that people hate Palin's politics, but that is not the tenor of what I am reading in the press. It reads to me like they hate her vulgarity and lack of class.