Liberal is used differently in different places, which causes a lot of the confusion. Kind of like how conservative sometimes means resistant to change and sometimes means regressive depending on who has adopted the label.
The oversimplified pattern that I see for a linear political spectrum, which is too simplified to be accurate when one gets into the weeds but easier to explain conceptually is:
Leftist – Liberal – Centrist – Conservative – Far Right
In the US liberals are called leftists by the conservatives who are actually the far right because our overall spectrum is shifted pretty far to the right. Centrists aren’t really in the middle as much as they are trying to appease both sides. Again, this is very oversimplified but when you hear that liberals aren’t really leftists they are basically saying that liberals are not nearly as far left as they claim to be.
Liberal is used differently in different places, which causes a lot of the confusion. Kind of like how conservative sometimes means resistant to change and sometimes means regressive depending on who has adopted the label.
The oversimplified pattern that I see for a linear political spectrum, which is too simplified to be accurate when one gets into the weeds but easier to explain conceptually is:
Leftist – Liberal – Centrist – Conservative – Far Right
In the US liberals are called leftists by the conservatives who are actually the far right because our overall spectrum is shifted pretty far to the right. Centrists aren’t really in the middle as much as they are trying to appease both sides. Again, this is very oversimplified but when you hear that liberals aren’t really leftists they are basically saying that liberals are not nearly as far left as they claim to be.