There's definitely a political direction in the US, something hard-leftists don't get. Here's a set of fun polls:

• Pew Research
• Gallop
• Yougov

All three links try to answer the painful question of: "How do American voters line up on ideologies?" Gallop finds that America as a whole identifies more Conservative (36%) than Liberal (24%), with another whole 36% saying they are neither Liberal NOR Conservative. The Other Side is divided up into 20% Very Conservative, 49% Conservative, 27% Moderate, and a tiny sliver of Liberal or Very Liberal Republicans (that surprises me all by itself! Where do they find these people?!). We here on the Left count 16% as Very Liberal, 31% as Liberal, and a whopping 45% as Moderate (and another 5% as Conservatives, but we know we have those). Unfortunately, we have to deal with the fact that we live in a country where 7 out of every 20 people say they are neither Left NOR Right and view both parties from a 'pox on both' perspective. At least they're moving to our side because Fascism Bad, amirite? :)

Gallop points out that even as people become more self-identified as liberal on social issues (33% Liberal, 32% Moderate, 32% Conservative), they remain very moderate to conservative on economic issues (23% Liberal, 35% Moderate, 39% Conservative). That's why Liberals have to focus on social issues because economic issues don't favour them. 69% of voters in the Democratic Party agree on liberal approaches to social issues, while only 49% favour a conservative approach.

But above all, the most interesting one is the YouGov poll. When people were asked about how their politics was described, 21% said "Moderate" described them well, and another 33% said it described them partially. Conservative got 28% and 25% on the same areas. Progressive only scored 18% and 24% in those areas, and Liberal scored 16% and 24%. Socialist? 7+21%. Left Wing? 11+16%. But they went further. They asked which terms used to describe the respondants, and which terms never described them. Socialist and Left-Wing shared a stat line on that response -- 51% of people said these terms NEVER described them, while another 6% said the terms used to describe them. Only Radical (64%) and Anarchist (67%) scored harder on the 'I have never been this).

I'm not sure I agree with the notion that today's Democrats are Reagan's Republicans, but as long as you keep in mind that you live in a country that over half of people polled vehemently disagreed with being labelled socialist or left-wing, and tailor your solutions to account for that, while trying to do the best to represent Progressive or Liberal goals, I won't complain hard about whether or not 2024 Dems would be at home in the 1980 RNC.