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>1970... trending toward neoliberalism What were we doing before 1970? Not being adversarial here, asking from curiosity.

• reverendsteveii 2y ago
  trending away from post-war/new deal-ish liberalism in a way that wouldn't be defined until neoliberalism emerged. I'm playing a bit fast and loose but with Thatcher in 79 and Reagan in 80 that's the spot where I'm marking the emergence of neoliberalism as essentially the default political platform for the english speaking world. Because nothing comes from nowhere and nothing happens overnight in national politics I'm essentially inferring that there had to be a bit of a groundswell of support for that socioeconomic framework in the years leading up to it but also that it likely wasn't the primary focus of a party that represented roughly half the electorate until then. Look at eisenhower's platform, you could be a republican in the 50s and support labor unions and the minimum wage. Then Kennedy and other center left dems dominated the 60s, barely held it together through the 70s, lost the fight against small-government, free market conservatives in the 80s and became small-government, free market conservatives in the 90s