These haven't been faux leftists, though. They're real enough in their way. It's their faux excuses for their behavior that aren't. Not that those given to fringe reactionism understand where they go wrong. They are the righteous elite who understand what we cannot.

Fact is, the more radical and extreme leftists become, the more they identify the huge, diverse Democratic mainstream as America's "real" problem. As we see every day here.

Also, the more radical leftists become, the more they agree with their counterparts on the right, who feel exactly the same way. And as we saw in 2016, they can all "righteous" themselves right off the edge, a spiraling down into a strongly overlapping extremism where left and right become easy prey for dangerous manipulators.