These labels need to be scrapped.
Yes. The problem lies in the propensity for us to label and pigeonhole people and ideas so they can be understood in a sound clip with the least amount of effort to the greatest number of people. To create understandable groups with clear ideologies that can be branded. I agree these terms Liberal, Conservative, Moderate, Left Wing, Right Wing don't accurately describe the political landscape today. I think most people are a mix of both. Fiscally conservative, socially liberal that's me.
I don't always vote along party lines but rather the individual candidates, sometimes republican, sometimes democrate, sometimes green, which ever views I most align with - which is usually a mixure of conservative and liberal views. Liberal used to mean pro change, and conservative use to mean pro status quo. But much of the status quo has come to embody liberal ideas such as civil rights, end of slavery, legalized abortion...etc. So the terms left and right, liberal, conservative accurately described politics 30 years ago during the Vietnam war and hippie era but aren't as clear anymore. They are becoming anachronisms, out dated, useless.
Seems like a more accurate pigeonholing of the country in terms of ideology is more divided along rural and urban lines. That's how the vote is generally split in California - the coast votes socially and fiscally liberal and the center agricultural and mountain areas almost always conservative and it played the same on a macro scale across the nation with the 2 coasts and Great Lake states going blue. Because where you live and your environment determines your value system and obviously city folk have different requirements for living than country folk do and value different things. Cosmoplitan vs. Country, Science vs. Bible, New Ideals vs. Traditional Ideals, Expansion vs. Contraction, Community well being vs. Individual Family well being, Green Alternative Energy vs Oil and Coal energy, Gun Control vs Personal Guns and Rifles. Density vs. Sprawl. Hybrids vs. Trucks. World Communty vs. Isolated insular foreign policy, New Ideas and Personal exploration vs. Basic Reading Writing and Arithmetic. Fast life vs. Slow life. Competition Strife vs. Complacency. New and Improved vs Tried and True. Is it no wonder why the great learning institutions are in very liberal towns?
So what can be the new pigeonhole terms of the new political age? Metrosexual and Hick, Town and Country, Progressive and Traditionalist. How about getting rid of these stupid terms altogether and having a real dialog on issues without these blanket generalizations getting in the way of cooperation and progress towards a better place to live for all us plebians. Save the pigeonholing for the birds. It's like hearing arguments and deciding on issues without the prejudice of a label and to decide on its own intrinsic merits or faults- now wouldn't that be refreshing, rational decison making based on facts. Truth not contrived partisan Truthiness.