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Thanks for posting this. I find this Interesting because I have long posted on Free Republic a version of this tiered view of the Left, which I believe is a fair and reasonable way to view it. This is how I have characterized them for many years. I use the rule of thirds, though it is categories of thirds, not into quantities:

Good-Hearted Liberals. They don’t think about issues much further than the emotional part. Not all of them are bad or crazy, many are just ill-informed and/or slaves to their emotions. They trust the news. You can often talk to these people, they may live next door to you or are in the next office over. They may believe in diversity, homosexuality, and things like Black Lives Matter, and they may go to churches that support those same things. They buy into these things even though they may otherwise be intelligent, because they largely accept what has been spoon fed to them. Some may change their minds and stop being a Leftist due to current outrageous leftist handling of an issue, or they may have life circumstances that make them change. Sometimes it is simply going out into the working world and having to buy your own food and toilet paper. I have some casual acquaintances and people I work with, I have been able to talk politics with them on occasion, and they know where I am coming from even if they don’t agree. These people are often incidental useful idiots.
Leftist Foot Soldiers. These are the true believers, the foot soldiers of Marxism, the Marxist Cannon Fodder. These are people you cannot talk to. I just avoid them. I don’t bother to engage them or debate issues with them. These are almost always the people on the other side of the protest barrier. I have had some exposure since 2004 with these people from demonstrating with the DC Chapter outside Walter Reed for all those years, and I despise and detest them. These are the Code Pink, Move On, LGBTQRXZ, SJW, Black Lives Matter people. These people actually believe that Marxist crap. They are the people with fevered faces, spittle on their lips, chanting the stupid slogans “Hey, hey, ho, ho, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah” as if they are too stupid to make up any new chants from the Sixties. Their cars have 12 bumper stickers on the back, and sometimes the sides and the front, with “Question Authority”, “Impeach Trump” “Diversity” (with all the symbols) No Blood For Oil, and so on. These people suck. I have never met a single one in my entire life I thought had more value than a warm cup of spit, and even then. I avoid them. These are the REAL useful idiots.
The Evil Ones. These people are enemies. They know what they are all about, and they know you know it (if you are one of us) They aren’t about equality or any other fashionable SJW issue, but play along as if they care about those things...which they don’t. They are all about being grifters of other people’s money, having their hands directly on the levers of power, and exercising it with prejudice. These people are the ones who DO make it to the privileged power set when they take power, and they have no qualms about putting those people in any other category but them up against a wall...particularly the 2nd group listed above, who could become dangerous to them.

One final note: I have long since entered the camp of labeling the people who are "Leftist Foot Soldiers" and "The Evil Ones" as "Leftists". I still often refer to people who are in the "Good-Hearted Liberal" category as "Liberals" but I no longer use "Leftist" and "Liberal" interchangeably. I do think there is a distinction.

I find this three-tiered categorization valuable, since I don't have to refer to all on the Left as "Leftists" which has a very negative connotation. I know some "Good-Hearted Liberals" who are good people who can be talked to, and I cannot call them independents, they have elements of their outlook that are indisputably Leftist, and they often believe fervently in those, but I can easily see it is simply because they have not thought things through.

As a result, I am not willing to lump those people in with the other categories, and I believe many conservatives transition through that "Good-Hearted Liberal" stage as part of a life journey.

They trust the news.

. . . little imagining that they are keeping themselves in the dark and systematically listening to malarky.
The difference between a Democrat and an “objective journalist” is that the Democrat is slightly more candid. Only slightly, but . . .

That's a very useful differentiation.

Most liberals I know are of the Good-Hearted Liberal group.

But things have gotten murky since Obama was elected and dragged the Democratic Party to the Hard Left.

Some of the previously good-hearted liberals that I know have become surly and some have become downright angry.

For example, I was chatting with a Methodist minister at my health club back before Trump was elected and the subject of taxes came up.

I said we needed to cut taxes to stimulate the economy and he disagreed. I asked him why (he actually wanted to raise taxes) and he said "charity."

I raised a couple of points with him at that point.

First, I asked him if he defines charity not as giving from the goodness of your heart, but having money taken from you by the government in the name of "charity."

His back went up a bit.

Next, I asked him if he understood the difference between "tax rates" and "tax revenues raised"?

He was completely lost.

I explained that there was a sweet spot in the "rates of taxation" such that lowering tax rates of citizens and companies had the affect of increasing the amount of taxes taken in.

He was still dumbfounded. He said, that just doesn't make sense.

I explained that it is similar to paying salesmen commissions on how much they sell. It looks like paying the salesmen more money would just reduce profits. But what it actually does is encourage them to work harder and sell more. Same for reduced tax rates. It encourages people and companies to work harder and produce more...hence increasing GDP (he: "what is GDP"?), raising incomes being taxes, and thereby increasing tax revenues.

He heard me but was perplex because I made a tiny crack in his liberal world view.

The next time I saw him, he was noticeable cold toward me.

As an aside, since Trump's election, I have several friends and family members I would call Good-Hearted Liberals who have cut themselves off from Trump supporters.

I'm not sure just how good-hearted they really are.

I suspect they are stewing over the issue of conservatism in general.

It appears that since distinct battle lines have been drawn between liberalism and conservatism by Hard Core Lefties, these folks are in the difficult position of whether to decide to stay with their liberal beliefs (and thereby become useful idiots) or start rethinking their positions re: politics.

As I heard recently, some marriages are even on the rocks over the political divide.

I like your division of people into 3 tiers. Years ago, I divided leftist/liberal professors into 3 groups: Activists, Actives and Inactives. The Activists are maybe 5% and their belligerence sets the tone in the departments. Actives actively follow the lead of the Activists and make up probably 85-90% of profs who spew leftist garbage. They believe in the stuff, but are followers. Finally, maybe 5-10% of profs don’t do anything. They simply want to teach the kids, get their paycheck, and do some research. Also in this last group are the 2-3% who are conservatives who lay low so they don’t catch grief from the others.