Umm, that liberal/mugging idea came a LONG time before the Neo-Con thingie.
But that’s what popularized it and the slogan they took to define themselves.
But, in reality, no. The mugging by reality doesn’t work for actual leftists.
It will work for those who’ve been go along to get along with leftists without any real thought into it so self identified, incorrectly, as leftist.
But actual leftists are what they are because that’s how their brain works.
Leftists brain function is not much survivable when times are harsh. That’s why in harsh times there’s not a whole hella lot of leftists running around leftistisming. There’ll be some, but rarely ever enough to reach critical mass and destroy everything around themselves as is what leftists do.
But, in easy times, leftists flourish. So there’s more and more of them. And as populations grow, there’ll be more leftists within that population.
And eventually, the leftists gain critical mass.
Everything is destroyed. The leftists die off faster and more completely than the rest.
And civilization has to start all over.
the TL&DR version:
Bad times make hard men.
Hard men make good times.
Good times make soft men.
Soft men make bad times.