Why do you think Americans are such easy marks for

...and so-called "teachers/academics" and the entertainment/advertising media too, by the way.

"I support anything/anyone (left/right/in-between)." 

"I'm a (conservative/liberal/moderate)." 

"I'm a (Democrat/Republican/Libertarian/Socialist/Independent)."

...and even WITHIN these warring camps there are warring factions, subfactions and sub-subfactions.

A nation of lemmings hurling themselves over the cliffs.  Streams of rats following this or that or the other Pied Piper.  Tribes.  Herds manipulated by the few for their own benefit, blown hither and thither by "opinion polls", "studies" and empty speeches loaded with emotionally-rich but intellectually-empty verbiage.

Like the blind men and the elephant, if you ask any 6 people to define their herd, you'll get 6 different answers, all of them demonstrably wrong, for the simple reason that these herds have nothing to do with any of the mythical positions that people have been told differentiate and define them.

The herds aren't about political principles or ideals.  They are created, and their hatred and contempt for other herds (YOUR hatred and contempt) is deiberately nourished by the few who use them to accumulate and increase their own power, money and influence.

This is why terms like "Democrat", "Republican", and even "Independent" have no real definitions that are actually borne out by the behavior of their leadership, or the practical outcomes of their political activities and programs.

Do Democrats truly believe that "government is the answer for every problem" while Republicans are all about  "smaller government"?  You certainly couldn't prove either case by any truly objective analysis of periods when Democrats/Republicans have had the reins.

Are Democrats really "champions of the poor"?  Ditto.

Are Republicans "only interested in the rich"?  Ditto.

Which party is "hawkish" and which is "pacifist"?  Which party is more in bed with the "military-industrial complex" or the "rich and powerful"?  Is a Democrat reliably in favor of "single-payer health insurance"?  Does a Republican necessarily prefer "market-driven health insurance"?

More to the point, when you ask herd members who do hold these "banner" positions WHY, they usually don't have the faintest idea.  "Because that's what my tribe believes" is really what it comes down to 9 times out of 10 - followed by regurgitation of something they heard from a favorite pundit filled with misinformation and carefully selected data.

Like the Obama/liberal hatred and animosity before it, the current Trump/conservative hatred and animosity now are but two sides of the same coin.

And that coin is counterfeit - minted in the back rooms of people whose personal agenda has nothing whatsoever to do with you, with me, or even with the welfare of the nation, except to the extent that you, me, and the state of the nation benefit them personally.

As everyone is so fond of saying (when challenged):  "I have a right to my opinion."

Yes, you do, but in a democracy NO ONE has a right to an ignorant opinion.

The quicker you divorce yourself from whatever herd you belong to, the quicker you can get about the business of being an objective, informed individual - and THEN AND ONLY THEN do you have a "right" to your opinion.

Truth rarely lies in the slogans claimed for themselves by parties, nor in the epithets that they hurl at opposing parties.  Nor is there any party, nor any political philosophy, that has all the answers.  No approach to governance is the "right" one for each and every social problem.  We have something to learn from all ideas across the spectrum of political ideology. 

That means that you conservatives have something to learn from liberals.  And you liberals have something to learn from conservatives. 

We in America cherish freedom.  And that makes it all the more tragic that we allow ourselves to to be taken hostage by, and then labor on behalf of, the overlords of influence. As pernicious a form of slavery as physical chains.

Break free of these bonds.  Your life will be better off for it - and so will the nation, and after all, that's what matters at the end of the day, right?  True freedom in America is being trampled by people who shout down others, who disrupt political gatherings, who spray insults, and who even use the very instruments and offices of democracy itself as bludgeons against their "foes." 

There's certainly nothing wrong with identifying ourselves at some position along the political spectrum, but never as ground that we stake out for battle if it means that we will defend it against all reasonable evidence to the contrary with regard to diferent social problems that our position simply doesn't have good answers for.  Not if it means we hate others who have a different perspective, and certainly not if it means that we allow others to do our thinking for us - either because thinking for ourselves is work that we're simply too lazy to do or because we've bought the idea that Googling an article that "supports" our position and throwing it in someone's face is what passes for thinking.