Did he assign a trait to liberals? Because if not, there's no inconsistency.

Let's see...

politics for liberals are just a big reality show

It sure seems like it. Liberals treat politics as a reality TV show seems to be a trait described.

Then a follow up question: is there a difference between 'liberals' as a group (i.e. not liberalism) and a government (i.e. an institution)? If so, there may be no inconsistency.

Sure, there is a difference. They're both institutions though. They can both be assigned traits in perfectly valid reasonable ways.

I don't necessarily have answers to these questions but it seems that you can't be calling someone out for bad faith unless you can strongly argue yes, no, yes, to the above questions.

I can strongly answer that "anthropomorphising" things made of anthropomorphic beings is perfectly reasonable. Giving traits to a building can be silly, but sometimes still useful literarily. Using human characteristics to describe humans is totally normal, useful, and reasonable.