Psychologically, the name “republican” is much more powerful than “democrat”, something about the syllables, the history, what it represents. When the Republican Party was liberal was when it was strongest; the only democratic presidents we’ve had in the past hundred years have been extremely charismatic, strong people (excluding Carter), whereas Republicans have gotten away with nominating people like George HW Bush and still won. In the Spanish Civil war it was “republicans” who were the anarchists/communists bravely fighting the fascists; it’s appeal had far reaching effects, gathering people like Orwell and Hemingway to travel to Spain to fight under the “Republican” banner. Similarly in Europe, Republicans typically infers liberal. That’s why if it is possible, we need to co-opt the name, and also abandon identity politics but that is another issue 🙂 agree?