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The country is on the tail-end of the dumbing-down process and the average person tends to be a brainwashed media zombie. Fox News, quite right-of-center, has defined itself as the new middle ground. Dissent is alive and well, but is squashed by the media noise machine, which tends to be right-of-center. If you were to assess the world on a "political compass" scale, the US would fall toward the authoritarian side socially and the permissive side economically.
American liberalism is a strange creature, composed of an anti-Bush, anti-Reagan flavor of reactionary anti-conservatism mixed with Europeanist* progressivism. American conservatism is in line with internationalist conservative movements, focusing on traditionalist social policies rooted in puratinism and a longing for the good old days of lassiez-faire economic policies.
In short, while the conservative movement has been consistently based on a monolithic ideology, liberalism, at least in America, has only retained the core anti-authoritarian values and borrowed heavily from any progressive movement that dares to rage against the machine and therefore suffers a consistent identity crisis as it is forced to redefine itself as it progresses. The lack of cohesion has left our country with a lack of true understanding and consensus as to what it means to be a liberal. I see no way around this.
* - "Europianist" is one my favorite word. Say it out loud and try not to giggle like a kid. Now try to work it into conversation whenever possible.
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