Six months ago we explained why the neocons hate Donald Trump and with his meteroric rise that dislike has only grown stronger and more desperate (and we suspect Trump's view of the hawkish warmongers has risen right alongside it). In fact, as The Hill reports, the rise of Donald Trump is threatening the power of neoconservatives, who find themselves at risk of being marginalized in the Republican Party. Whereas neoconservatism advocates spreading American ideals through the use of military force, Trump has made the case for nationalism and a smaller U.S. military footprint. Trump, for all his contradictions, gives voice to the “isolationist” populism that neocon confederates despise, and which is implanted so deeply in the American consciousness. Why us? Why are we paying everybody’s bills? Why are we fighting everybody else’s wars? It’s a bad deal! And that is why neocons hate The Donald.
Neoconservatism was at its height during the presidency of George W. Bush, helping to shape the rationale for the U.S. invasion of Iraq; but now, as The Hill details, the ideology is under attack, with Trump systematically rejecting each of its core principles.
Whereas neoconservatism advocates spreading American ideals through the use of military force, Trump has made the case for nationalism and a smaller U.S. military footprint.
In what Trump calls an "America First" approach, he proposes rejecting alliances that don't work, trade deals that don’t deliver, and military interventionism that costs too much.
He has said he would get along with Russian President Vladimir Putin and sit down with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un — a throwback to the “realist” foreign policy of President Nixon.
As if to underscore that point, the presumptive GOP nominee met with Nixon's Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger, earlier this week, and delivered his first major foreign policy speech at an event last month hosted by the Center for National Interest, which Nixon founded.
Leading neoconservative figures like Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan have assailed Trump’s foreign policy views. Kagan even called Trump a “fascist” in a recent Washington Post op-ed.
"This is how fascism comes to America, not with jackboots and salutes (although there have been salutes, and a whiff of violence) but with a television huckster, a phony billionaire, a textbook egomaniac 'tapping into' popular resentments and insecurities, and with an entire national political party — out of ambition or blind party loyalty, or simply out of fear — falling into line behind him," wrote Kagan, who is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Other neoconservatives say Trump’s foreign policy stances, such as his opposition to the Iraq war and the U.S. intervention in Libya, are inconsistent and represent “completely mindless” boasting.
“It’s not, ‘Oh I really feel that the neoconservatism has come to a bad end and we need to hearken back to the realism of the Nixon administration,’ ” said Danielle Pletka, senior vice president for foreign and defense policy at the American Enterprise Institute.
“Do you see anybody who voted for Donald Trump saying that? Absolutely not,” she said. “I don’t think Donald Trump believes in anything but Donald Trump, and that’s why the right label for his movement is Trumpism — nothing else.”
Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, agreed, saying that to associate Trump to such a clear school of thought as realism "would be being a little bit generous."
"[Neoconservatives] are concerned for good reason," said O'Hanlon, a Democratic defense hawk "These people don't think that Trump is prepared intellectually to be president."
"It's not just that their stance of foreign policy would be losing .. .all foreign policy schools would be losing influence under Trump with very unpredictable consequences," he added.
Despite the opposition he faces in some corners of the GOP, polls indicate that Trump’s message is in line with the public mood.
A recent Pew poll found that nearly six in 10 Americans said the U.S. should "deal with its own problems and let other countries deal with their own problems as best they can," a more isolationist approach at odds with neoconservative thought.
Experts say the isolationist sentiment is prevalent in the Democratic Party as well.
“The [Bernie] Sanders supporters charge Hillary Clinton with never seeing a quagmire she did not wish to enter, and basically with not just complicity, but a leading role in contriving some of the worst disasters of American foreign policy in this century,” said Amb. Chas Freeman, a senior fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, and a former Nixon and George H.W. Bush official.
"This is the principle reason that Hillary Clinton is having so much trouble putting Bernie Sanders away," said Mearsheimer, who supports the Vermont senator. "Sanders is capitalizing on all that disenchantment in the public, and Hillary Clinton represents the old order."
But the ideological battle over foreign policy is playing out more forcefully in the GOP, and as we concluded previously,
Trump, for all his contradictions, gives voice to the “isolationist” populism that neocon confederates despise, and which is implanted so deeply in the American consciousness. Why us? Why are we paying everybody’s bills? Why are we fighting everybody else’s wars? It’s a bad deal!
This is why the neocons hate Trump’s guts. The War Party fear is that Trump’s contradictory mixture of bluster – “bigger, better, stronger!” – and complaints that our allies are taking advantage of us means a victory for the dreaded “isolationists” at the polls.
Yes, it’s election season, the one time – short of when we’re about to invade yet another country – when the American people are engaged with the foreign policy issues of the day. And what we are seeing is a rising tide of disgust with our policy of global intervention. Either way, the real voice of the American heartland is being heard.
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For all his faults as a candidate, Trump is forcing a sea change in the American political discourse. His campaign for the presidency has certainly shifted the terms of the debate over foreign policy, not only in the GOP but generally. Senator Rand Paul’s candidacy was dogged by questions about his lack of “orthodoxy” on foreign policy issues. That orthodoxy has now been smashed to smithereens, and future Rand Pauls will face no such suspicious inquiries. Candidates will no longer be required to sing, in unison, “the false song of globalism” – and we have Donald Trump to thank for that.
The task of anti-interventionists is not – as some would have it – to sit on the sidelines, or to join the “Never Trump” neocons and Clintonistas in attacking the Trump phenomenon as somehow beyond the pale. It is, instead, to push the discourse even further. We must take advantage of the opening provided by Trump’s campaign to point out the contradictions, recruit Trump’s supporters into a broader movement to change American foreign policy, and break the bipartisan interventionist consensus once and for all.
For the past twenty years, movements have arisen to challenge American imperialism: the campaigns of Pat Buchanan, the antiwar left that arose during the Bush years, the Ron Paul campaigns that energized many thousands of young people and put some meat on the bones of the libertarian movement. You’ll note the pattern: the Buchanan movement was small yet vociferous, the antiwar left was much bigger and yet more diffuse, the Ron Paulians were (and are) substantial in size and highly focused and well-organized – yet all crested without achieving a mass character, falling short of their goals.
The Trump movement is different: it is massive, and it is capable of winning. That’s what has the Establishment in such a panic that they are considering denying Trump the nomination and bringing in a candidate on a “white horse” to steal the GOP from the Trumpians. If that happens, the system will be shaken to its very foundations, its very legitimacy in doubt – a perfect storm as far as libertarians are concerned.
But there is more to it than that. If we step back from the daily news cycle, and consider the larger significance of the Trump phenomenon, the meaning of it all is unmistakable: we haven’t seen anything like this in American politics – not ever. Revolution is in the air. The oligarchy is tottering. The American people are waking up, and rising up – and those who try to ignore it or disdain it as mere “populism” will be left behind.
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