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I don't think this is why. Look at the number of Bernie supporters. I think what's really going on is that the right-wing media has a strategy of shifting the Overton window by calling liberals "left" and those same liberals have little problem with that because they consider themselves left, not knowing any better.

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> Look at the number of Bernie supporters.

Mostly liberal, not leftist. (Even if they were, Bernie'd prove the point.)

It's not just the word liberal, which means something different for most Americans than its meaning in other countries. In Australia, the Liberal party is the conservatives who are allied with Murdoch.

The word "neoliberal" is also a problem. It is used negatively and aimed at a broad swath of center-left to center-right.

But in other countries, the people called "neoliberals" would be understood to be conservatives. Instead of using "n*liberals", we should be calling them "conservatives". Larry Summers, for example, is a conservative.

We should start using descriptive names. It is hard to confuse just who are the "money decides and confers authority" party from the "not everything is about money" party to "god speaks to me and says this is how you do it" party. Also those donkeys and elephants are pretty ambiguous as well. How about snakes and scorpions? Isn't that more descriptive?

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