I agree with your comment. I go further, I've always thought that liberal comments on blogs that are insulting or dismissive about the electorate have contributed a great deal to Democratic losses. Especially the humorless type of comment. People might not participate, but they do surf around blogs, see that stuff, enough to get confirmation bias about liberals. I'm not suggesting people should self-censor if they are angry about a certain segment of the electorate, but only that they should have recognition about the consequences of their speech.

But let's dig down a bit and talk about what the contempt is over and how it's expressed.

Do you express support for positions with which you disagree? Do you say that X is something about which reasonable people can disagree? Do you disagree vehemently, but refrain from calling them your opponents "stupid"? Do you work to find places where there's common ground?

I'm wondering whether it's the rhetoric that offends or the positions themselves. Or the conflicts and controversies that draw the most attention. For example, the registrar who wouldn't issue licenses to gay peoples who became a martyr to the cause. Or the bathroom ruling for the school in NC?

On the one hand, it seems that these flare-ups affect very few people relatively speaking. On the other hand, if you're one of the few, and you're being denied your rights, then it's the world. But maybe the art would be to keep the issue local--not make a "federal case" out of it and draw the whole country into it--but still press the case at the local level and escalate it to higher courts as need be.

If I'm not mistaken, the real problem for the Trump voter was when the federal government issued guidelines for bathroom use. Once the whole country is involved, and presidential candidates come streaming into obscure little towns to "support" the maligned registrar, then liberals and the Democrat party become unduly tagged with it. I mean, it IS an position liberals should support; the question is, how.

Once the weight of the government and the Democratic Party come down in support of certain positions that are challenging to explain...and end up calling their opponents bigots and racists as a result of their opposition or even lack of support for those positions...then it's easy for the Democrats to be labeled as condescending and out of touch with "regular people."

If you're in the vanguard of the people on issue X, then you have to take care to bring people along with you, even as you keep pressing. And you have to know how to horse trade. FDR soft soaped the racists in his party in exchange for their support for radical social programs. He didn't call them dumb hicks (that I know of) for opposing Social Security and supporting segregation; nor did he have to argue for segregation; he bargained with them to move the ball forward.

The act of negotiating and compromising to get something you want in exchange may be a way to show respect for your opponent's position without openly supporting it. I don't think Obama was very good at it and could've been helped enormously if Teddy had lived to help him. He knew how to get things out of his opponents.

rolling around on the WWE stage for years for their entertainment.

Excellent point, I forgot about all that! He's been working at building up working class creds for a long time. He likes it, that's him letting go.

Not to mention, his taste in cars, decorating, how the opposite sex presents, etc. as a wealthy man has always been that which many would chose if they won the lotto. And  comes to mind he's always been enthusiastic and proud about that.

Born and bred in Queens, despite the private military school experience. It really is the striver's and climber's borough of NYC. (Staten Island, reliably Republican, is more far right and just plain bizarre, Queens would be independent land.)