Portnoy claims to be a liberal but his positions taken are classical liberal and not snowflake liberal. The founders were classical liberals as are most on FR. Classical “liberal” is civil liberties under the rule of law with an emphasis on economic freedom and from before the slave holding party got a hold of the lexicon and made “liberal” an evil word with their evil deeds in its name.
There’s a big difference between a liberal in the classic sense and a Liberal. The latter being a leftist loon and denoted by the capital L to distinguish the difference.
There’s nothing liberal or democratic about a Liberal Democrat.