Liberals aren’t, and never have been, “Liberal”
They’re “Progressives”, borrowing from the Marxist/Leninist concept that there’s an inevitable “progression” of/to history.
In the early 20th Century, “Progressivism” became synonymous with Socialism and even Communism. So they dropped the moniker in favor of “Liberal,” which was appropriated from “Classical Liberalism.” in order to make themselves more palatable to the political mainstream.
Once Liberalism became something of a dirty word in the late 20th Century they started readopting “Progressivism” to identify themselves.
In the meantime, as with everything else they appropriated, “Classical Liberalism” got destroyed. Which sucks. I’d really like to have the term back.
I analogize liberal ideology to a can of dog poop.
They put new labels on it to disguise that it’s dog poop,
but whatever label they put on it,
people eventually come to understand it means “dog poop”.
Tagline material alert:
Liberalism: The Honeywagon of political ideologies.