I mean I can't stand intellectual eggheads and I am an intellectual egghead.

But traditionally the left's base hasn't been intellectual eggheads, though mostly they came along for the ride until colleges were turned into neoliberal degree mills. The base has been organized labour. And, notably, organized labour before it was necessarily legal (given that it may not be legal soon).

When I say that the left needs to get more populist, I don't mean that we should be throwing marginalized people under the bus. I mean that we need to have an actual class analysis and then organize amongst people of that class.