Quote from Lucrum:
Neoconservatism is a political philosophy that emerged in the United States from the rejection of social liberalism and the New Left counterculture of the 1960s. It influenced the Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and the George W. Bush presidential administrations, representing a realignment in American politics, and the defection of a certain segment of liberals to the right side of the political spectrum.[1] Neoconservatism emphasizes foreign policy as paramount responsibility of government, seeing the need for the U.S. acting as the world's sole superpower as indispensable to establishing and maintaining global order.[2]
As a term, neoconservative first was used derisively by democratic socialist Michael Harrington to identify a group of people (who described themselves as liberals) as newly stimulated conservative ex-liberals. The idea that liberalism "no longer knew what it was talking about" is neoconservatism's central theme.
The term 'Neoconservative' was originally used as a criticism against liberals that had politically 'moved to the right'.
As neo-con godfather Irving Kristol once remarked, a neo-conservative is a ''liberal who was mugged by reality''.