IMO conflating Democrats with “liberals” was one of the greatest strokes of propaganda the rightwing has pulled off in the last few decades.

Bush/Cheney familiarized us all with “neoconservative” in 2000 which it turns out were just new, aggressive conservatives. So it stands to reason that for many in the U.S. “neoliberal = new aggressive liberals” even though neoliberalism is the de facto platform of both major parties.