Is this a legitimate term? I have heard this used in a number of ways and can’t determine if the term is a pejorative or a legitimate unbiased term. Is it always applied to a left versus right spectrum?
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In the US it’s typically used to refer to the brand of politics endorsed by George Bush and John McCain in the early 2000s.
Highly interventionist foreign policy
Globalization
Low tax rates
Minimal attention to domestic social issues
At the time it was used earnestly to distinguish themselves from the more nationalist and values-centric brands of conservativism, but it has since become an insult – branding “neo-cons” as warmongers and sellouts to globalist interests.
“Neo-con ” is a political term. Whether it’s legitimate or insulting kind of depends on who is using it. It was a popular term in the early 2000s, when a lot of the people in the George W. Bush administration allegedly subscribed to those policy positions.
Generally it’s applied to foreign policy. Neo-cons want a strong military, and a United States that is active in foreign affairs. It promotes interventionist policies. In other words, drone strike some terrorists, remove some dictator, put troops into a war-torn country. Get involved and get your hands dirty.
To some degree, every American president since WWII has followed these types of interventionist policies. Neo-cons basically believe in being Team America: World Police. It’s mostly identified with GWB’s administration, but in practice Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton aren’t really much different.
Since Iraq and Afghanistan both dragged on for decades, it isn’t really a desired label. It’s unpopular today to be a neo-con (you aren’t going to win many elections calling yourself that). But it isn’t negative in the sense of calling someone a fascist.
Neo-con, is short for neo-conservative. It’s a legitimate term
During the 1960s, there was major shift in US politics. Neo-cons grew out of a portion of (what we’d now call) centrist-liberals who supported civil rights, but felt social programs like the President Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” (which for example created Medicare and Medicaid) went too far. They also disagreed with movements that sought to ease the Cold War.
Neo-cons are mostly known for being very “hawkish” in foreign policy. Meaning they favor military intervention. George W. Bush is usually used as an example of a neo-con.
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