Time to reclaim “Liberal”

Quincy writes Why Liberals should support Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court (they will need someone like him to control Trump.) In his explanation he makes a distinction between liberals and progressives.

This is where we need to split the left into two groups: liberals and progressives. Progressives will never support Neil Gorsuch for the court. He opposes, more than anything, their belief that the progressive agenda should be implemented with whatever power is needed.

Liberals, on the other hand, still care about things like individual rights and due process despite sharing some goals with progressives. It is liberals who need to take a fresh look at Neil Gorsuch. There are issues far more important in this Supreme Court appointment than abortion and birth control. The very concept of limiting executive power is at stake.

In the past century the left hijacked the word “liberal”, as they have done with so many other terms, and imbued it with illiberal qualities, especially statism and collectivism.  As a result, the true liberals had to adopt other terms to distinguish themselves.  But people confuse “libertarian” with “libertine” and “classical liberal” is cumbersome on the tongue.  Quincy’s liberal is more like the original.