Actually, the progressive left have bastardized "liberal" and it's meaning in today's lexicon. They are NOT liberals in the classical sense. Liberals believe strongly in individual liberty, the radical left doesn't believe in this... they are authoritarian fascists who want to control people. They are about totalitarian power. Power to tell you what to do, when you can do it, how you are allowed to do it and who you can do it with. They want to micromanage every aspect of your life because they believe they know better how to do this.
"Liberal" and "leftist" have never meant the same thing, ever. That conflation was begun not with the left but with the desperate-for-power Republicans of the Red Scare/McCarthy daze. And reiterated in George Bush's 1988 presidential campaign.
Liberals invented this country and wrote its Constitution Liberalism means laissez-faire -- take care of basic government business and then get the hell out of the way. Liberalism means power derives from We the People, and not some authoritarian in a classed meritocracy.