Why are so many Americans unable to tell the difference between right-wing and left-wing?

[Glenn Greens]

It is obvious to most educated, first world people outside of the USA, that many Americans have no idea what "left-wing" or "right-wing" mean, either in today’s context or historically. Is this a product of decades far right-wing corporate media propaganda (eg McCarthyism etc)? Is their grossly mismanaged and under funded public education system to blame? Is it cultural and related to the confusion working class Americans have between "working class" and "middle class"? Apparently the US mainstream media completely omits the real political left, and substitutes with center-right posers; faux-left mouthpieces for capitalist parasites. When was the last time you saw an actual socialist disseminating socialist understandings in the mainstream US media? I've never seen it personally. Will social media ever be able to inform enough Americans to counter the influence of mass media propaganda from the moneyed elitists that dominate American plutocracy and brainwash the masses?

PS> I'm not interested in moronic complaints about grammar and spelling; Einstein was dyslexic and could not spell; but what he meant is discernible to those who are informed and can use their brains properly. So if you don't understand me, that's your deficiency not mine. I don't use bastardised American grammar or spelling; get over it.

[Mar]

Left-wing was pro-slavery at one point. Right-wing was progressives.
Left = social freedom, Right = economic freedom

[Rank Xerox]

Ignorance, Glenn.

If they don't hear it in the mainstream, they won't because they lack curiosity or desire to be informed.

Most people don't even want to read a restaurant menu, preferring the daily special instead, recited by the server...

[Scott Mescudi]

Because there is no left and right wings in the US. All politics is here is getting the people to buy into whatever plan to help the big corporations sounds the best to them. And 99% of people are too stupid to realize this and instead say the left is for gay marriage, abortions, and entitlements while the right is against gay marriage, against abortions, and for lower taxes.

[Me Ne Frego]

I would agree partially, however, there is just as much wrong with the definition of "right" as there is "left."

The essential difference between "right" and "left" is that the right traditionally holds inegalitarianism as an irreducable truth, and the left of course holds egalitarianism as it highest principle.

What the Americans and other western globalist, capitalist countries hold as the highest value is the monetary value of life, and the notion that "equal" is something defined by material. In this sense, the American "right" is not truly right, as it is routinely championing the cause of "meritocracy." Meritocracy to the American right is measured in material acquisition, where the American left values this as well, but also emphasizes the acquisition of polical power as a measure of merit. Neither believe in true merit.
For example, comapare George W. Bush and Jesse Jackson Jr. Neither of these men should have ascended as high as they did in a true meritocracy or truly "right wing" society. "Merit" is something that is purchased in the U.S. It is purchased with money and political influence, with no other standard upholding it. This is contrary to the inegalitarianism in both instances.

A person may ascend to the top of the food chain by devious means in this false meritocracy. Look at Madoff, Koch Brothers, and even Soros. All ascended through similar means and push others to the top to do their bidding by peddling influence and spreading money.

[smkeller]

By God, that's a mouthful.

'Will social media ever be able to inform enough Americans to counter the influence of mass media propaganda from the moneyed elitists'?

This is really what you are asking, no?

I give you credit for charging into the thicket of influences that seem to rule the American public, but why do you imagine that instead of the 6,8 or 20 sources of information - and I use the term loosely - that we now have, thousands would be better?

The problem is not so much the sources but the inability of people to discriminate 'fact' from 'fiction', the 'likely' from the 'ridiculous', the 'fair and balanced' from the obvious 'sell-job.'

So, I think that you may have shaken YOURSELF loose from at least some of these influences, but you have NOT provided a viable alternative to what we have now.