Maybe he was more of a “classic” liberal.
Remember, the Communists hijacked the word.
I would love to someday call myself a “liberal”, but I can’t given now how people see that word, no thanks to the Communists.
There are a lot of classic liberals that are horrified at the direction of the crazies under Biden. Not enough to overcome the fraud machine, but they are out there.
To be clear, the “classic” liberal is not really what is popularly thought of as the 19th century British Liberal. All free trade and lassier-faire. “Liberal” had quite a few forms even in the 19th century. And it included a lot that is not now considered “liberal” in what we imagine as the classic sense.
Centralised government, “romantic” foreign involvement, nationalist mythologies, bureaucratic rule by experts, etc. A lot was inherited by the US progressives, original version.
Throw in the non-English understandings and things get weirder. Did you know that Francisco Franco was originally a liberal? 19th century Spanish flavor.
This stuff is very messy.
Left-wing colleges claim to teach “liberal arts.“