At the last rally in D.C., after I'd done my stint, I walked over to the counter rally across the street. I was inobtrusive, but three people from that rally, all college students, approached me. (They recogniized me from having made a "raid" across the street to our rally, a while before.)
These were all middle-class, do-gooder college students, and I was able to have a sane conversation with them (they were not the "Free Mumia" types). I thought it was worth the effort to talk with them, let them know Ii understood where they were coming from. The one young man was intending to go into elementary school teaching. I asked him why, and he said because his father had done that for 20 years. I praised his father and him, for commitment to a career choice that entirely too few young men ever consider.
Anyway, with the more intelligent and thoughtful of the opposition, it is possible to communicate and maybe plant some seeds. It is scary to be among them, though. The "security marshalls" for the other rally were all Musliim men, speaking mostly Arabic, Farsi, whatever, into their cell phones.
Congressman Billybob