I don’t know what to do, you guys

That's not quite it. They're also perceived to be for the expansion of government, more spying, less local and state autonomy, fewer guns, more regulation of businesses, more taxes, more diversity, more equal redistribution of wealth, and less prosecution of criminals.

(Now, we'll ignore that on at least the last three points, that's patently false, because their supporters and backers have no interest in such things.)

The thing that is probably biggest difference, though, is the way the two sides' members treat each other. I'd say that the right-wing folks view the other side with fear, because they're worried that they'll ruin everything. Their talking heads tend to treat the left with outright hostility and use very nationalistic notes and basically try to show that while they are the enemy, they are a legitimate enemy.

The left seems to view the opposition as backwards and deserving of contempt, as a group of bumpkins and idiots and sometimes subhuman. Their talking heads tend to appeal to how smart the reader/viewer is for following the party line, and espouse philosophies that require a strict adherence to lest one be considered ignorant and hence non-left.

It's hard to side with the left, for me anyways, because they seem to encourage a sort of arbitrary and baseless smugness I've never seen in the right. And that's unfortunate, because change is needed and some of their positions are unquestionably correct.

"It's worth remembering that one disadvantage left-side politics have is that they are defending the status quo, and mounting such a defense is trench warfare, not a campaign that captures the hearts and minds of the next generation. By comparison, right-side politics are passionate for change. And it's when people are passionate that they get into disagreement. But because the right is so far away from achieving its goals, the passions inside the movement aren't as heated. Also, the right tends to be suspicious of political correctness and ideological litmus tests."

I suspect if you hung around Americans for Tax Reform, Heritage, Family Research Council, Eagle Forum, etc. for a while, you'd find that they want to overturn the status quo on taxes (perhaps a flat tax), government spending (reduce significantly), third-tier government agencies not mentioned in the Constitution (abolish), abortion (overturn Roe v. Wade), obscenity and indecency (remember the horror called the Communications Decency Act?), religion (erode church/state barrier), United Nations (get U.S. out, or reduce dues), federal regulations (dramatically roll back), Obamacare (repeal), Second Amendment (enforce RTKBA post-Heller), voter ID, marriage, home schooling (defend), public schools (vouchers), and so on.

Look at the 1968 Democratic Party platform. It talked about Head Start, Upward Bound, more federal spending on education, Medicare expansion, creating the Department of Housing and Urban Development, more regulation of industry, increasing Social Security spending, etc. [http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29604]. It's been nearly half a century since then, and all those policies have been enshrined into law; the question today is not whether to eliminate them, but how much budgets will increase year-over-year.

Liberalism has won the culture war as well, as both conservatives and liberals have acknowledged for quite some time: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/14/1291965/-Liberalism... http://theweek.com/articles/469079/culture-war-over-conserva...

Imagine an organization appoints as its head somebody who believes very strongly that blacks should sit in the back of the bus. So strongly that she spent her money to amend the constitution to keep them there — successfully. The organization itself does some work that you believe in, but would you volunteer your time as enthusiastically to that organization knowing what its head has done? Would you be a little more likely to donate your time elsewhere instead, even if just to feel less uncomfortable around your black friends? Now imagine that most of the people who volunteer for this organization hold progressive views and have the same decision to make. It's not hard to see that this appointment could threaten the continued existence of the organization.

Now replace blacks with gays, bus position with marriage (which, I'm sure you agree, is a far worse restriction), and she with he.