I have also never really had much push back on claiming the government is illegitimate.
Are you talking to the average CNN viewer, though? And might people be willing to entertain more radical ideas in person, from a regular guy, than they would from an elected official?
Belief in the illegitimacy of the government makes more sense in a heavily red area. I think at that point it comes down to who’s just culturally conservative (and the hostility to government that comes with that) and who’s an ideologically-committed right-winger. The latter isn’t reachable, but the former might be.
