It seems like you learn about politics through propaganda. When I hear "classic liberal", I think of the philosophical origin of liberalism: Locke and Hobbes. Libertarian contains the same root word, but is not similar to liberal other than that.

If you pursue freedom, and individual liberty and are a US citizen, there's no way to consider GOP policy as providing more freedom or liberty. The only 2 areas I can think of where they even claim to be for freedom is: guns and freedom for corporations.

Then there's literally everything else: being a woman, not straight, not white, not Christian, an income tax payer, a property owner near an unregulated corporate entity, a person who likes sane people to have access to semiautomatic long guns, a person who enjoys drugs, a person who wants to buy or sell sex, ... etc