Maybe our mental model of politics is wrong.
Nate Silver, the polling expert, wrote an essay this week. He said there aren't two poles in politics, with people somewhere on that left-right, liberal-conservative spectrum. There are three poles, he wrote. There is a triangle with a Social Justice Left on one point, a Trump/MAGA group on a second point, and a group of classic Liberals on the third point. Liberal here mean the classic liberalism of individualism, free markets, equality, diversity, and freedom of expression.
Silver posited this map:
I will get back to this in future posts, but I think Silver's view is both astute and incomplete. I agree that MAGA conservatism dominates the current "red team" of Republicans, but there is a division within it between the Trump-style populists and more traditional conservatives who support authority, institutions, and laws. Old-style Republicans are currently in hiding because Trump is resolute in attacking them, calling them RINOs--Republicans In Name Only. When Trump is gone, they will find courage and will re-emerge and claim they were moderate all along and never really supported Trump.
The best political lesson I learned during my college years was not from a professor. It was from the father of a local girl I took on a Sunday afternoon date. Mr. Conway greeted me at the door and sat me down in their parlor. He asked about my parents' work. He asked about my future financial prospects. He asked about my religion. He asked about my classes, and when I told him I was taking a class from a noted presidential scholar, he said I was completely wrong. Left-right means nothing, he said. There aren't two sides. The Irish vote for the Irish. The Italians vote for the Italians. Jews vote for Jews. Blacks vote for Blacks. Politics had a multiplicity of poles and dimensions, he said. He was as identity-politics-centric as anyone in the current Social Justice Left coalition. He opened my mind.
I am a "liberal" with a strong orientation toward individual liberty and individual responsibility. That distinguishes me from the Social Justice Left which emphasizes groups as agents of oppression or victimhood. I value the work ethic and I may be naive here, but I think people willing and able to work hard can find financial success, at least here in America. My career giving financial advice made me more favorable to markets than are most liberals; I see how they clarify competing values. With all the hesitations, reservations, and qualifications, one "really is" what one decides to do. The price of things, if not their ultimate value, is what market participants decide. That makes me more oriented toward democracy than to autocratic authority. I am also a near-absolutist on free speech, especially in universities.
I see the extraordinary power of branding and presentation, especially in the highly-visible choice of president. I see a multi-factor, multi-pole political world. The various factors overlay one another. The choice of president gets mediated and resolved in a simple branding choice based in large part on the personality and presentation skills of the candidate. That is why I write about messages, denoted and implied.
It is why Trump is so dangerous. He is a selfish, corrupt, shameless man. But he knows how to be interesting.
You said: "I value the work ethic and I may be naive here, but I think people willing and able to work hard can find financial success, at least here in America." My husband says that too. You're white, and male. Right there, you are starting out ahead of a lot of people. I basically agree with much of what you said in this essay ... except that I would say "I think white people willing and able to work hard ...". I've come to believe that it's a lot harder for black and brown folk.
The subject about which you write is complex, and no one could fault you for over-simplification in the short space you have. I would only make two points. One regards the "Social Justice Left." It's true that too much of it has gotten bogged down in identity politics, but we (because that's how identify myself) believe in the necessity of group action--in this case governmental action--to advance justice, in large part by controlling the enormous and predatory power of corporations. Which ties into my second point. What you label and characterize as "liberalism" is misleading. That position in the 19th century was called liberalism. For more than a century now, it has been labeled libertarianism. Libertarianism overlaps with Maga-right wing politics, with its hostility to government interference in most areas of life. Liberalism has challenged the libertarian assumption that there should be regulation of the "free market," knowing what happens as soon as de-regulation takes place (see, for instance, the financial meltdown of 2008, which took massive government intervention to avoid recreating a world-wide depression. Given these considerations, you may wish to rethink where your own place is on the triangle.