I always feel like I'm hanging out in a punk/hardcore music scene (various anarchist groups, psl to some extent) or with lame improv nerds (dsa). I don't see either of these groups connecting with very many working class people. This is obviously a huge problem but (at least where I am) there is very little attempt to organize or recruit people making minimum wage, fast food workers, service industry, manual laborers etc. I mean shouldn't this be the main priority right now? I don't know I'm just venting but I'm baffled by how bad at organizing these groups are. Do they really just like being this cliquey group that is hard to get into and that's what really matters?
I think it is a problem to an extent, especially on the internet where politics is an identity and the tendency is towards gatekeeping and cliquishness, but also think what you are encountering is partially due to how young these groups tend to be. Among the people I've worked with, none especially political, the younger tend to be stoners and they look 'subcultural'. Among them are a lot of outright punks, very few are whatever you are thinking of as normal. This is in perfectly, stereotypically blue collar jobs. There were also nerds though, which I am guessing is what you mean by improvish.
The two more real differences between them and the people at those meetings, when you adjust for age, are college talk - which is due to their liberalism rather than their leftism - and being overtly LGBT, which is non-negotiable.
Dirtbag leftism has its place in the real world. I worked in kitchens and restaurants for a while and sometimes just screaming about how Pelosi drinks children's blood and the Capitalists stealing directly from our pockets and there are more of us than them, and guillotines are cheap gets through to people that are really down.
Everyone's heard the fucking garbage that liberals spew, and they've all heard some compelling stuff from the right about how shit liberals are, but they're not used to hearing a combination of "black lives matter! Fuck the traitorous democrats!" It's a good way to get through quick and open up a new way of looking at things and isn't really one of the 2 accepted flavors
no working class person in America likes the rich. Some conservatives may SAY they support the idea of "getting rich" but you bring up Jeff Bezoz they will dunk on him with you. The class consciousness is there it just pretty weak and too individualized. Liberal bullshit is immediately detected as well which is why half this country rightfully cannot stand the pretentious democrats.
I had a couple chuds, but mostly apolitical libs that sometimes listened to Rogan in my shop. Every one of them agreed with basically everything I had to say. The chud was just a braindead ex Miami nightclub head so there wasn't any changing his mind. Everyone else agreed until I mentioned that what I've been describing is communism then just got confused because communism is bad lol.
Most of them have come around lately though, the pandemic made them snap pretty quickly to "my boss is the enemy, we need central planning and guaranteed welfare". Even when it feels fruitless, keep laying the seeds. Eventually material conditions will drive people to seek answers and they'll come back to what you've said.