Among the USA war media's most important tasks is the maintenance of the false binary. They've done yeoman's work recently: how else could one explain that mainstream progressive thought is now to constantly foment nuclear war with Russia? (I'll quote Chancellor Merkel here: "I think it must once again become normal for Russian and American presidents to meet.") Alternatively, how is it that the party of Lincoln is now prominently associated with Nazis? (Go ahead, tell me one of these observations is wrong...)

In reality, the two "choices" imposed upon us are Coke and Pepsi, two noxious compounds that require extended chemical analysis to differentiate. They both want more war, all the time, in every case, for whatever reason. The real reason, of course, is so that they may skim some of those sweet armaments manufacturing profits. No it's not a conspiracy. Important influencers know which side of their toast is buttered, but they are a small minority and they don't need to coordinate in secret. Everyone who doesn't revolve from bureaucratic post to public office to lobbyist to executive board to think-tank sinecure, is a mere useful idiot. If 10-20% of American voters ever learn about horseshoe theory, they'll be screwed. Therefore the media mentions that about as often as they mention e.g. Libya or Yemen.

So, it's little surprise that we Americans have no clue about leftist thought.

I was mostly with you until the "horseshoe theory" stuff, which seems out of place. If anything, "horseshoe theory" is a recent fabrication to reinforce the notion that the space outside of our false-binary choices are all invalid, and equally so. Social Democrats, Anarchists, and Nazis all get sort of lumped into the don't-even-think-about-it box together.

I'm sure it has been used that way! I'm thinking more about the areas of agreement that exist among people with different politics. Maybe we don't agree on the exact right destination for e.g. some $2T chunk of money, but we agree that it shouldn't be used to kill random people overseas. That ain't centrist! I occasionally lurk over at Caitlin Johnstone's site and I get a kick out of the "cross-ideological collaboration" she's doing.

I suspect you're conflating the old and new meanings of "liberal".

The only place I used "liberal" was in a quote of Dejacques from the 19th century. Of course it's the "old" (rather: the one still used everywhere but in the US) meaning, as someone adhering to classical liberal thought.

Nothing was conflated.