Although I don't fully disagree (I have my problems with the current direction of mainstream leftism), there is one undeniable fact that is missing from your pe

Although I don't fully disagree (I have my problems with the current direction of mainstream leftism), there is one undeniable fact that is missing from your perspective: in many, many cases, political movements have to ask for 1000 to get 100. This has been the case effectively since modern politics was invented in the XVIII century. The US had to break away from its original government just to get a degree of control on its own destiny. France had to burn its system to the ground, killing thousands from its elite classes, just to entrench a right for the people to be consulted on general policies. It similarly took a bloody revolution in Russia for European industrialists to actually accept some curbing of their considerate powers, recognising a few worker rights (and as soon as that scare disappeared, they started walking them all back...). Hippies pushed completely new ways of life just so that someone could create a few national parks. So many political parties start by spouting fire and brimstone, move the bar a few inches further on this or that subject once in power, and then basically sit down, with the promised apocalypse never really materializing. So yeah, progressives often push stuff that looks extreme, simply so that they can actually move the Overton window and obtain very small improvements. It would be nice if reasonableness resulted in progress, but in reality it largely results in being ignored.