Do they talk to skinheads, Klan members, neo-Nazis, militia members, John Birchers, etc.?
I don't think they want to talk to average, conservative Americans. They'd find out the truth, and the truth is one thing they're deathly afraid of. It's like the book I read "What's The Matter With Kansas" by New York Times wrtier Thomas Frank. Frank simply couldn't understand why average Kansans weren't raging leftists like himself. Why do these people keep "voting against their economic interests?" in Frank's infamous phrase. Frank simply couldn't understand the conservative mentality. Like all leftists he thinks life is a matter of taking from other people who have more than you do.
Lind appears to be not much diffent. "Why don't you conservatives want to tax the superrich to death?" It never occurs to them is that taking from others what you haven't earned yourself is morally dishonest. Having a select, tiny group of people in Washington determining how everybody else should live is morally dishonest. Until liberals grasp those basic facts, we'll always be at loggerheads.