> What we often call "liberals" in the US are more like "leftists" than the traditional liberal way of life and thought.
Originally, the political Left was a name for classical liberalism based on where the liberals sat, as opposed to the conservative monarchists, in the French National Assembly. So if we’re fetishizing the original sense of terms, the distinction is nonsense.
Most of the political spectrum in the modern West (outside of the
far right, which is classically conservative) is rooted in classical liberalism, which was nearly completely victorious over classical conservatism. They differ in whether they see the progress made by the 18th century liberals as the end goal or the starting point (“Left” evolved somewhat faster than “liberal” because that division became evident during the revolutionary period in France.)
> I make the distinction about "thinking" people not to be elitists at all
Yeah, you just think disagreeing with you ideologically can only be possible if people don't think.
> but rather because it is obvious that there are those who blindly follow and then there are those who choose to be more analytical and actually think rather than follow.
Sure, that much is true. The part that's less obvious is where you say most everyone that falls in the latter camp agrees with you ideologically while most everyone who disagrees with you is in the former camp.