>
>
> My impression is that most Democrats are scared to cop to being
> liberal these days. Are these anti-union Democrats calling themselves
> liberals ? Even most pro-union Democrats don't call themselves
> "liberal" .
>
They do; they just use the word "progressive" instead. This is normal. Not too long ago - and still, in many parts of the world - "liberal" meant what contemporary Americans would call libertarian and "libertarian" what contemporary Americans would call left anarchism. I don't this has ever been of particular consequence.
> 40 years ago there were liberal Republicans. Nelson Rockefeller was
> one, supposedly. It took a lot of liberal Republican votes to pass the
> Civil Rights bills.
>
That's all a consequence of Civil Rights itself, of course. The incorporation of Southern whites into the New Deal Coalition led the parties to have an unprecedented level of ideological incoherence, which led to a lot of bipartisanship. Things are back to normal, now.