It's not just radical leftists. Every culture has a saying along the lines of "you are what you say I am". Children pick up on "it takes one to know one" very early. The archetype of having to battle the part of ones self that's shamefully repressed- the thing one is most focused on hiding, shows up in the shadow they're projecting everywhere they look. Others don't see things they're not looking for, sometimes it just takes (the media) pointing it out, but it has to have some usefulness to you if you don't see it as an obstacle to avoid or a tool to use it would just be noise.