Ronald Reagan was a neoliberal- so was George (Senior) Bush. I see people today using it to just mean liberal- when it means the exact opposite.
In the distant past of the early 2000s, the established definition actually paralleled "Neo-conservative" . Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Alan Greenspan, and Milton Friedman were neoliberals, aka conservatives.
The definition of neoliberal (often shortened to "neolib") has had several definitions which are current undergoing re-invention in our post-truth societies. In that sense, it can mean whatever you want it to mean. But one problem with having so many active and
contradictory definitions (of which this site seems to promote
more than most others), is that canonical definitions will be thrown out, thus making historical review almost impossible. Already we have much confusion about how the Dixiecrats turned into the
Republican Party of today.
