And ANOTHER reason we Democrats lost and will continue to lose

[Sympthsical]

125. I don't think it's meant to be taken that way

I think general intelligence applied socially falls into three categories: IQ, EQ, and street smarts (for lack of a better term).

IQ is what one assumes. Ability to understand and process information. EQ is the ability to read and understand people. Street smarts is a knowledge base generated outside of formal education.

One of the problems I think we have among people higher up in the party - not just the political consultants, but people like media figures, influencers, academics, and activists - is that you have people at a decent level of intelligence who don't have a lot of real world experience outside of their cozy enclaves. If I had a nickel for every time I've said on DU, "So . . . have you ever actually met people?" I'd buy a vacation home.

There are just so many times and instances where I come into Democratic and liberal spaces to see people talking with each other and nodding enthusiastically in agreement on things that anyone with even passing knowledge on how human beings actually think and behave would know people absolutely do not like. And this environment gets created where if you're in the tribe, you use language and concepts that only other people in the tribe respond to. Spend too much time with like-minded people, and it's easy to start assuming that everyone uses and responds to that language.

Language matters. Communication is the only thing we have, and if we aren't aware that we're only communicating with ourselves, problems can arise. I've had instances, more times than I care, when I'm talking with someone I'm generally in political agreement with, and then they start sounding like a Twitter pseudo-intellectual. I always wonder how glazed over my eyes look when my brain goes absolutely out to lunch mid-conversation.

I do think one of the perils of the bubble people live in on social media is that they unlearn how to talk to people who aren't like themselves. If it's fun, you merely get these stories, "And then I said to the cashier that I would never vote for a cis-gendered misogynist autocrat, and everyone applauded!" Yes. Doesn't that happen at everyone's 7-11? But at its worst, it leads to people tuning us out. We're not talking to anyone anymore. We're just talking to ourselves. The problem is when we haven't noticed when and where that threshold exists and when it gets crossed.

The OP could've been articulated better, but the gist of its sentiment isn't wrong in my experience. Time and again I read things and think, "I really hope these people aren't interacting with voters."