The theft of the term liberal has been so successful that the American public equates boots on neck socialism to be liberal. Anybody still trying to fight to retain the definition of liberalism, as it used to mean, is fighting a losing cause and they are feeding the progressive liberals and making them stronger. In short, those fighting to retain the definition of liberalism is enabling the growth of progressivism and it will result in the US becoming a slave nation, just like every other socialist nation you can think of which includes my own.
I’m not pushing for war, but I do recognize that talking to Putin and possibly allowing him to retain some territory where there is Russian ethnics would have been the solution that prevented the elimination of the Ukranian people.
Real liberals still exist - except, likely they calling themselves “independents”.
They are easy enough to find- and they are worth convincing.
The Progressive/Communists/Socialists are actually a minority- but they hold key positions in academia, the media, and among some politicians and business leaders. The main bunch that we see on the streets are nitwits and violent opportunists who latched onto the slogans and don’t actually know what they mean.
Putin or whomever succeeds him will see any compromise as weakness and any concessions for “peace” will just be the slight pause for the next round. Remember how those “majority Russian” provinces came to be settled in the 1930s: by starving the Ukrainians who had lived there for centuries and the Stalin move his Russians in.
Still a sore point among that folks in that region.