This might be because I barely talk to anyone in the first place, but only one person ever has picked up on my political stances without me overtly telling them. Everyone else tells me some mixture of "you think too much" or "haha you're joking about China, right?"

Almost no one around where I live has anything close to a recognition of leftist jargon, nor does anyone here recognize that socialist = advocacy for the working class. Political jargon here is caught up primarily on things mentioned a lot in media, so being on one side or another of BLM, liking Trump himself as a person, or if you like guns. That's about it.

Talking about common socialist points, like anti-imperialism, having more power at one's job, having access to more public services, those don't track as political issues for most people I interact with. The jargon and language simply isn't recognized. The anti-imperialist stuff sounds like absolutely nothing at all. Advocating for working class control confuses most people on the basis it's assumed you can simply change your job or start or your business if you don't like working for someone. Advocating for more public services is similarly confusing because it's assumed we already have a glut of too many public services to be viable.

I'll fully admit this might just be because most people I talk to on a daily basis are my coworkers and they might not be an accurate sample of the whole population.