If the fringe left are throwing paint on him and the fringe right are saying "we want to be like him!" then I put it to you that the situation is that the left fringe doesn't like classical liberalism.

It isn't that the meaning of the word is changing. There is a detectable (indeed, proud and vocal) anti-liberalism stripe in the people who most loudly disagree with Carl Benjamin. And a lot of his positions are classical liberal positions. The classical liberals wouldn't have been very impressed by the things he criticises (or him, one suspects, but ones character is different from ones political persuasion).