Liberals != left wing, at least in philosophy. They don't even have to be related at all, like communism was thought of as left wing and is certainly not liberal.

For some insane reason in the US left and liberal have become synonyms. Now, I am both, but I want the separation to be there so I can be both and distance myself from the illiberal left.

I'm with you. Lifelong Democrat and now confronted with people calling themselves liberals who are trying to dismantle democratic ideals like freedom of speech and equal treatment under the law, and they fancy themselves Progressives.

I don't see how there can be a functioning democracy without freedom of speech (with very few limitations) and equal treatment under the law.

What I find really scary is that since left-wing has become to mean the same as liberal, a large part of the US population has come to define themselves as anti-liberal when I really hope that is not true.

What I am saying is that liberal has nothing to do with left-wing or right-wing, conservative or progressive.

The first line of wikipedia for liberalism is: "Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed and equality before the law. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but they generally support individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, private property and a market economy."

I sincerely hope that is something we can come together and agree are important in the US. Even though it sounds like you and me have very different political views it also sounds like we agree that all of these are good. That means we have a wide array of items we agree on, but that are in danger at the moment. It seems to me there is a common platform most of us could agree to, but both parties have been to some degree hijacked by extremist so both of us to some extent are supporting illiberal candidates when we really don't agree with that.

I've been voting Libertarian since the Republican Party decided to decamp into MAGA-land.

Which is also not much of a home, since it generally is inhabited by non-serious people- but at this point at least I can morally live with a platform of you stay out of my way and I'll stay out of yours. The other options have too many compromises right now.

The US badly need more than two political parties.

Political parties in the US aren't very strong; instead of having more names of parties, we just replace the insides of the current ones in primary elections. It's not like the UK where you actually have to do what they tell you or can literally get fired.

Replacing FPTP with RCV would elect more centrists, but without proportional representation there'd still be two parties I think.

Yes agree with the current voting system it will not make too much difference. Need proportional representation.

I think the problem is not that the parties are too strong, but that are too weak to strong interest groups.

Look into ranked choice voting. That could help.

In many European countries, liberals used to be left in the 19th century, whereas conservatives were right. Then liberals won, replaced conservatives on the right with socialists of various kinds on the left. In many European countries (not all), conservatism is dead, but the US, conservatism never died. Possibly because slavery required a hierarchical view of society; one of the tenets of conservatism, and at odds with the fundamental principles of liberalism.

But liberalism is primarily about freedom, about equality under the law, but not necessarily economic equality. Low taxes, little social security, wealthy industrialists owning everything is still compatible with equality under the law. So there are economically right-wing and left-wing interpretations of liberalism.

Similarly, people who are for or against economic equality can have liberal or authoritarian views on how to accomplish that.