Intelligencer - Bari Weiss Reinvents Neoconservatism

The original neoconservatives were a clique of mostly Jewish intellectuals who reacted, to one degree or another, against the Great Society and the radicalism of the New Left. The epithet neoconservative was coined by democratic socialist Michael Harrington to accuse the dissidents — who styled themselves as moderate, empirically oriented New Dealers — of joining the right.

This accusation soon became prophecy. Irving Kristol embraced the term, quipping that a neoconservative was “a liberal who had been mugged by reality.” Most neoconservatives did join the conservative movement, melding into its network of think tanks, foundations, and magazines so seamlessly it eventually became difficult to determine what the “neo” even meant. By the late 1990s, their sole remaining distinction from the rest of the movement was a fanatical belief in the transformative power of the American military. After the Iraq War, their influence faded. (In a final, redemptive act, many second-generation neocons left the Republican party over Donald Trump.)

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