While others have searched for the true meaning of Christmas, I, as you may know, have been searching for the true meaning of neoliberalism. It's a cheeky, full-bodied little term that nevertheless has always evaded my senses. But thanks to the New Republic's Ganesh Sitaraman, a Vanderbilt University law professor, the meaning of neoliberalism is no longer a mystery.
In brief, neoliberalism is the cause of everything that has gone wrong in the last few decades, writes Sitaraman, which also means that Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Margaret Thatcher were neoliberals. You name it, from deregulation to W.'s neoconservatism to the Great Recession, it was neoliberalism at the helm — no doubt about it.
Happily for the virtuously progressive Sitaraman, such intellectual wackiness allows him to bundle President Obama with the right-wing loonies of the 1980s, thereby progressively denying that Obama ever did anything right, which seems a particularly appealing bugaboo among the self-righteous left.
Go ahead. Read Sitarman's article for yourself. But I warn you, you'll be emotionally and intellectually exhausted before finishing it.