I saw lots of people with tears here in D.C. after Trump got elected. Many were to the right of me, including my George W. Bush-voting Republican wife.

It's not leftism so much as people who are committed to political orthodoxy versus people who don't care about it. Trump eschewed political orthodoxy, and still got elected, and that was very scary for a lot of people. (In contrast, I lean left, but come from a country where bombs go off after one side loses an election, so I found it very hard to get worked up about Trump.)