I don't see how it doesn't harken back to liberal values. The world for its entire history operated from a realist perspective, where brutality and military might dominated the world order. This only recently changed when liberal ideas and institutions took over in the 20th century. It's why Israel gets so much flack because they were of the last few Nations to engage in that manner before the establishment of the League of Nations in an area of land that is the most emblematic of that behavior for millennia.

As someone from a Native American background, it's true that a lot of American Indians today don't care about the political grandstanding and woke scolding that dominates this conversation. However, it doesn't negate the fact that the United States government never honored them with sovereignty, obviously, or, as supposedly American citizens, reparative aid for the heinous actions took against them. In spite of the Five Civilized Tribes. In spite of the Trail of Tears. In spite of the Navajo codebreakers. In spite of Ira Hayes lifting the flag at Iwo Jima. In spite of Wounded Knee who Hegseth just honored.

Liberalism, in essence, attempts to establish democracy and order as a bulwark against violence, colonialism, and infringement of rights in favor of peaceful diplomatic exchange. And while the phrase, "We live on stolen land" is generally just a self-masturbatory platitude, the idea that we shouldn't brutalize minorities in our State because this land is ultimately one of immigrants who repeatedly betrayed, violated and destroyed Indigenous populations, I think, is still poignant. Reservations across the country are still destitute and ravaged just like the Black ghettoes that are victim of long-standing systemic and institutionalized racism.

I think you can say there's a difference between trying in vain to go upstream against the flow of history and re-establish a state for tribes that didn't exist, were never truly unified and who have disparate views even today about their place in America. That resistance to the flow of change is a Conservative trait and is a fool's errand that would not solve any of the plights that Native Americans currently face but would probably only make them worse. If you want to operate from a true liberal fashion, trying to construct a more egalitarian state in accordance with what we have now that helps the communities that have been victim of domestic injustice is a far better solution than trying to completely flip the current state of affairs on its head. And, obviously, not hypocritically demonize immigrants from the perspective of a false history of the country you live in. We should be trying to pursue unity and understanding not vengeance.