But I can see how people end up with those ideas. Media sucks at teaching actual stuff.

Well, neoliberalism isn't just that, it's also "privatization, deregulation, monetarism, austerity, and reductions in government spending in order to increase the role of the private sector in the economy and society"

So you can't really be a leftist and support neoliberalism. We're seeing the catastrophic results now.