In this sense, it does mean more or less "classical liberal": a supporter of market economies, and, more generally, the political dominance of the bourgeois class (as, initially, opposed to the gentry, and as, later, opposed to the working class). It's used today by Internet leftists to include basically all of the mainstream political spectrum, but especially to denigrate "progressives" who claim to have leftist values, but in practice support the status quo.

Classical liberals want some semblance of limited government, and would oppose many mainstream Democratic ideas.

Actually, remarkably close to the sense of classic liberal.

Not if you mean "as the kids say". Sorry.

If you're involved in far-left movements on twitch and elsewhere, the kids definitely do say this and use liberal synonymously with centrist / to the right of the far left

And they're not wrong, either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratchet_effect

Yep - the leftists started by disparaging neoliberals, but today they just say liberals.

Even someone like Elizabeth Warren, who is generally recognized as very progressive, falls under this heading because of her basically positive disposition towards capitalism.

And to the inevitable downvoters - go read leftist social media. I'm just stating easily verifiable facts here. I don't have a problem with leftists.

Yes, everything said above is true. It makes for some very fun twitter conversations where the far left and the right both rail against liberals, and the right is like ????. More than once I've actually seen it open some eyes.

Don't know why you're being downvoted. As a too-online leftist, I can confirm that "lib" is short for liberal, and is applied to essentially any supporter of capitalism, even, or perhaps especially, those who position themselves as progressive. As indeed, it should be. /p

I more commonly see "shitlib" which pretty concisely summarizes the corporatist, militarist, fake-center positions taken by these politicians.

It basically means "pro-capitalism boomer" to most progressives