I don’t just mean outrage or regular rage, I mean shock that someone was to the left of “legal weed and free college but only for those that operate a successful business for 3 years in a disadvantaged community” 
takes.
I think federating took them by surprise, looking back. For about a week, those smug liberals were at a loss to even fathom what Hexbears were saying, and could only chant bullshit about how we’re Russian/Chinese bots.
Sure they still do that but they’ve slightly adapted to Hexbear presence.
Ask Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders what happens to leftists who try to appeal to democratic socialism.
Engage with the system (that is threatened by your dem soc ideas) e.g. liberalism and it will remove you somehow to protect itself.
In corbyn’s case the entire media apparatus and his own party turned on him to protect the status quo and tried to destroy his career.
With bernie they coopted his rhetoric, forced him into a roll where he couldn’t radicalise others and accomplished the same goal as corbyn, removing a vector or idea for change.
I don’t want violence or bloodshed either, I’d want everyone to swot up on socialism and then demand it from the government in a peaceful protest but if we did that then the government would literally go full mcarythism and shoot everyone at worst and at best nothing would change.
So while I don’t have an answer on how we achieve it as for every country it would be different, I can’t see politely asking a violent state like the US or UK to entertain it and an uneducated and ignorant public full of anti communism won’t vote for it soooooo 🤷♀️