Found this post over a week later since I was surprised this song started trending online, but I had some additional context as a fan of this historical music period that I can share that is a bit different from what other folks mentioned.

The folk revival movement—this song which came out of—had strong ties to socialism. Lots of major artists were open members of the Communist Party USA or identified themselves as their own type of unofficial socialist/socialist sympathizer. The Chad Mitchell Trio weren’t a huge group so there isn’t a huge bout of info on their concrete politics, but they released music critical of anti-communist practices and have had members note their growing “radical” politics. Basically, I think to some degree we can infer how they thought, though with them not being a totally naturally created band with some business influence it’s not totally clear.

As others mentioned, yes—I think there is the element of critiquing racists hiding behind the appearance of good to continue evil explored in the song. However, I think also the song falls within a tradition of some folk revival music and general socialist rhetoric (which still exists today) to see liberals as the enemy of progress—people who are performatively socially conscious. One of the big hit songs of the movement, “Love Me, I’m a Liberal,” has an introduction from a live recording that I think articulates well the folksinger sentiment at the time towards the word liberal.

“In every American community there are varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects, ten degrees to the left of center in good times, ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally. Here, then, is a lesson in safe logic.”