neoconservatives vs new right

[bedstuy]

If you read the actual neo-conservative writers, Irving Kristol comes to mind, neo-conservatives really weren't that bad.  They were very earnest, somewhat misguided liberals who focused on this forgotten dimension of politics- the idea of small r republican values.  They basically thought that the government and liberalism were powerless to address the social problems of the late 60s.  I think they were right actually that the relativism and rebellion of the 60s was largely empty, in that it didn't present an alternative vision of what being an American was about.  Actually, if you look at Irving Kristol and look at Obama's 2004 convention speech, you could argue that Obama has some neoconservative views in the domestic sphere. 

And, yeah, the New Right was basically the Old Right.  Ideologically, you can see a lot of continuity from the second Ku Klux Klan to the New Right of the 1960s.  These were just American fascists.