I don’t follow philosophical literature, but I almost 100% agree with that.

The only thing I would add is that modern American “liberals” are like the modern American “religious”. They vote for people who call themselves “liberal” and they call themselves “liberal” but they don’t read and they don’t really believe canonical “liberal” things if those positions do not serve them personally on issues they care about.

I do not believe there is a monolithic “liberalism”. To have a philosophical discussion about “liberalism” we have to paint in broad coalition strokes to stipulate that “liberals” are a cohesive group anymore(going back as far as I can remember, not just the last decade).

I think the prevailing popular realization is that both the Democrat and Republican parties are parties of the wealthy capital class and, importantly, that the wealthy capital class majorly overlaps with an unethical and violently extremist “Epstein” class.

Progressive candidates begrudgingly run under the Democrat banner while Libertarian candidates begrudgingly run under the Republican banner, but there is now a single “liberal”(read “change”) issue on the minds of the American electorate across both parties: Will the candidate bring the “Epstein” class to sufficient justice?

I think this single issue will override voting axes for a decade, beyond even questions about going to war or annexing another country.

I don’t think “liberalism” is a charade per se, I just think Americans are facing so many existential political problems that they have to prioritize and I’d wager they will prioritize voting for someone who will force Trump’s cadre of pedophiles to trial even if that someone is also annexing Cuba.