I guess I don't what a "liberal" is.

I don't think that "liberal" is a useful noun. It does better as an adjective. It also helps to recognize that "liberal" has no fixed definition. The people who are considered liberal now would be considered conservative thirty years ago. In no way, shape, or form would I describe the people who have been running the government since 2000 as anything like liberal. They also aren't conservative because they abandoned time-tested ways of managing the government's finances.