Thing is, as a person who agrees with them on many left-of-center issues (or at least disagree with conservatives on them), I don't think dishonesty is necessary. If we are correct on those issues, we should be able to win the battle of ideas in completely honest conversation, yes? And if we lose, then the country just isn't with us, at least right now.
Well, first, no. Both sides mislead, and when you have media like Fox and MSNBC that just reaffirms biases, you aren't going to have an honest discussion.
The honest discussion should be - "This is what our options are on a social safety net. This is what it's going to cost. Here are suggestions as to who is going to pay for it and how."
We don't have those discussions because we want government to do all these things and we want someone else to pay for it. That's not a progressive or conservative problem, that's an American problem.
The reason why it didn't matter as much from FDR to LBJ was because we had a strong enough middle class to support this kind of safety net. We don't today, mostly because the 1%ers have spent the last few decades shredding it. so more people are in the Safety Net, and less people are contributing to it.
If anyone is misleading the country,
it's conservatives who keep claiming we need to cut programs for the needy to give rich people tax cuts so they will magically grow the economy with flying dressage unicorns...