That could refer to liberals of days gone by. It could refer to the George McGoverns and Sargent Shrivers. It has no place though with the liberals of today who hate their country and who believe only in their own self serving arrogance.
Since Brandeis was appointed by Wilson and was a celebrated Progressive, this quote appears to be in keeping with that definition of a neoconservative: a liberal mugged by reality. I’d like to know the context of that quote — as I read now, Brandeis appears to have been a defender of New Deal legislation even though this quote should have raised a question on much of that social engineering.
I suspect most liberals are in denial because if they’ve lived long enough, they should have seen and experienced that their philosophy just doesn’t work in reality.