The Left in Wales must not abandon progressive causes.

I would not describe myself as an intellectual and Philosophy is something that I find difficult to grasp .

However that does not mean I can fo9llow political arguments and therefore I find a recent post by Ifan Morgan Jones on the Nation Cymru Blog rather offensive.

He writes 

According to economist Thomas Piketty, the tectonic plates of western politics are shifting.
His new essay, Brahmin Left vs. Merchant Right, looks at electoral trends in the UK, France, and the United States since the 1940s.
He suggests that we may be moving back towards the old left v right system, which used to be a battle between low and high-education/income voters.
The last few decades, he argued, gave rise to what he calls a “multiple-elite” party system. It has been a battle between the intellectual elite on the left and the business elite on the right.
That of course meant that – while there were some disagreements between them – whichever way you voted you got the same kind of thing. An internationalist consensus that supported globalisation and the basic tenets of neoliberalism.
This system tended to favour the growth of inequality (free trade makes it more difficult to redistribute wealth, as the rich could just relocate themselves – or their money – abroad if tax was raised).
The last few years, Piketty says, has seen the beginning of the switch from the “multiple-elite” party system to one where the elite are on one side and the ‘left behind’ on the other.

Using this argument  in a Welsh content Ifan continues   

As I wrote back in February 2017, Plaid Cymru is in many ways a ‘front row’ party – i.e. on the intellectual left.
The trouble with that, as I wrote in this follow-up article, is that Wales is a very ‘back row’ country of low-income, low-education voters – i.e. what Piketty would call nativists.
While the political divide has, for the last few decades, been between the intellectual elite and the merchant elite, this hasn’t been a particularly big problem for Plaid Cymru.
They haven’t made much electoral headway – for a myriad of reasons – but there hasn’t been any danger of the party sundering.
The intellectual elite were happy to share the same political space as left-leaning low-income and low-education voters.
Now, however, things are getting trickier. Low-income, low-education voters are becoming fed up with the status quo and want a change.
There are tensions between the internationalist, EU-supporting, socially progressive leadership of the party, and some of its members.
Like Labour, which has ruptured between its anti-EU left, which have taken control of the party, and a ‘centrist’, intellectual, globalist wing that are now toying with the idea of starting a new party, the party is  standing on a fault-line.

The most obvious manifestation of these tensions within Plaid Cymru is Neil McEvoy’s new anti-establishment ‘party within a party’, which aims to take on the “corrupt” elite on both left and right.
So, what are the options for Plaid Cymru? The best course of action might be to try and opt out of the nativist/globalist bifurcation and cast itself as a big-tent party that includes all Welsh nationalists.
McEvoy’s expulsion suggests that there’s little sign of that happening at the moment. It would take an awful lot of compromise.

A regualat commentator on National Left  Leigh Richards ·pointed out the flaw in the above argument

 I struggle to understand how someone with leanne's background could be characterised by anyone as being part of any 'elite'. Indeed a politician more rooted in the experiences of ordinary people in wales it would be hard to find. You're also wrong ifan in your sweeping characterisation of lower income people in wales as 'anti intellectual' - there's a long and honourable tradition of working class intellectuals in wales. It's a tradition which has helped shape wales over the last 100 or so years and made our nation the progressive left leaning country it is. For sure we cant ignore how people in wales voted in the eu referendum, but its a vote which can in quite a large part be explained by a desire on the part of many working class people in wales to give David Cameron a kickin after years of austerity. But it was telling that a year later people in wales people voted along the same lines they have in previous UK general elections - returning candidates representing left leaning parties (welsh labour and plaid) in 80 percent of welsh seats. Furthermore current polling shows the right wing 'populists' of ukip face oblivion at the next welsh General election in 2021. So while 'the tectonic plates are shifting' certainly makes for a eyecatching heading I fear its a claim not actually borne out by the electoral evidence in wales. Similarly there's no evidence to support claims that plaid would get more votes if it ditched its left of centre outlook and its long standing commitment to a fairer and more equal wales. Also somewhat puzzling you shoehorned Neil mcevoy into your article.It's well known that plaid took disciplinary action against Neil mcevoy for very specific reasons, none of which have anything to do with piketty's theories. Think you're also mistaken in your assertion there are large banks of people in wales at odds with 'cosmopolitanism'. A visit to almost any part of Wales would show that wales is becoming a increasingly cosmopolitan country and most people - younger people especially - are at ease with this.

Indeed what became clear from some of the other replies  is that there are those  who are prepared to promote  Racists , Homophobic rhetoric and who  have seized on support for Transgender issues to attack "The Liberal elite"

We often thought arguments that on these issues  had been one we had won and we are now living in a more tolerant soceity.

The election of Trump and Brexit partly on the votes of those who are white  and poor, who ironically  will suffer even more from a Far Right President and
likely to be the vicitims.

But as Leigh points out Wales has changed  and is clearly more  cosmopolitan  and liberal to the extent that we have now openly Gay MPs from the  Rhondda in Chris Bryant  and even politicians on the right can "come out" and get elected.

Indeed I would argue that we now have a Cosmopolitan Right who are not homophobic racists  and find themselves at odds with the rhetoric of Ukip.

Indeed perhaps  the  great struggle may not be between these rather than the Left .

For those on the Progressive Left the challenge is to rally those millions who have been affected  by the failure of Tory and Neo- Liberal economic policy to lift them out of poverty and that is linked the ongoing issue of equality regardless of Race, Sex or Gender identification.
Arguably the