But this principle applies at a national as well as at a local level.
A Left demand is not Congressional Legislation or a draft of such legislation. It is not an executive order. It does not include details, qualifications, etc etc etc
It is a demand by (say) ½ of 1% of the population hoping to reach another 1 to 2% of the population. Its primary purpose is, first, to ivnolve the ½% in extended discussion both of the demand itself and of tactics for ourtreacn and/or action of various sorts. The actions, of course, are primarily intended to maintain the group's own sense of its own existence and to remind liike-minded people (if they exist) of the group's existence.
If and when the goal of 2%, it has become a somewhat frightening movent. If that 2%, including both members and active sympathizers, begins to move toward 5% (exceedingly rare and probably indicating passive sympathizers well over 10%) you have a revolutionary movement, and the state will be moving both to co-opt it and to repress it - and there is no telling what will happen then. The populist movement at its height, before absorption into the DP, might have been approaching these figures, as was the '60s movement considered in its entirety (all levels of consciousness from local reform groups throug rioters to conscious revolutionaries). Hence the heavy repression and the fear-inspired 'progressive" legislation of the Nixon Administration.