There is no question that Liberals are different from Conservatives, but unfortunately not different enough in one crucial way.
Liberals also sell and hype their position, rather than teach it. They claim more cleanliness than they can back up rather than risk having their noses rubbed in the dirt they admit to.
Liberals must be more honest. They must own up to their own failings. Instead of ridiculing and demonizing little people turning Right, Liberals must reach out to them, understanding that fearful people choose fascism over democracy partly because they view democracy to lack any substantial support. Even if they realize that Liberal lying cannot compare with Conservative lying in degree, it does compare in quality.
It is this sameness of quality that carries weight with people. Even Michael Moore errs when he insists that this country was not in the past the cruel, uncompassionate place it is
becoming. Oh yes it was! Little white people clamoring for more democracy after the Civil War were very clear, in the North as well as the South, about how this process should operate exclusively on their behalf. Little has changed in some quarters, but much has changed in others. In order to stress the good, Liberals must own up to the bad.
Bottom line: Ideal-typical conservatism requires hoi-polloi adherents to be obedient members of a gang, or mob. Ideal typical liberalism requires all adherents to be self-actualized participants. The Democratic Party represents the second ideal, mostly, and the Republican Party the first, mostly. But not entirely. Both parties accept elitism, and Democrats ride a sharp rail when they go along with oppression in order to preserve social order. It appears to the little guy that they’re just the puppet of power with the nice smile.
Progressives are trying to address this problem, I think. But perhaps not hard enough.