It's perfectly possible for people to have privilege and hold power in one setting but not in others. I am relatively left-wing myself, but I do find it jarring

It's perfectly possible for people to have privilege and hold power in one setting but not in others. I am relatively left-wing myself, but I do find it jarring how little much of the media, academia and certain people I meet question that "of course, being left-wing must be the one true conviction, and we actually have science on our side". Even when I agree with them generally, I find the complete lack of appreciation for the other side of the argument baffling. In elections, of course, you end up asking a lot of people for their opinion, and not just the intellectual, wealthy elite, and I think this is why we are so often surprised by electoral results after having been in this academic bubble where "of course everyone supports migrants and trans people" (which I do, for the record). But since in most countries, people don't vote on issues directly but through their representatives, which generally align with political parties, I think what is happening is that very vocal, very extremist minorities lead to an increasing radicalisation of certain parties (in different directions; of course the extreme right wing is totally out of control in many countries nowadays), and "moderate" voters, while being moderate, don't really find an outlet for their opinions anymore and just have to settle for the side they find the least bad.