The Neocons Are Lying About Why They Hate Donald Trump

Here’s your shocker for the day:

The neoconservatives are lying.

Now before I tell you how I figured that out — apart from the fact that their lips are moving — I need to begin by parrying any manifestations of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

I do not support or endorse Donald Trump, who is not a libertarian and who appears to have no clear philosophy of any kind. He would no doubt do countless things that I would deplore.

Just like all the other candidates, in other words.

My point is not to cheer for him. My point is that the neocons’ stated reasons for opposing him so hysterically don’t add up.

(1) Max Boot worries that Trump will rule like a “strongman.” Right — quite unlike the restrained, humble executors of the law whom Max has endorsed over the years. In fact, Max has spent his career calling for a strong executive. Now he’s worried about a “strongman.” I’d say that horse has already left the stable, Max. You might want to look in the mirror to figure out how that happened.

Theodore Roosevelt, whom Teddy and his neocon buddies love, issued a whopping 1,006 executive orders (when his immediate predecessors had issued a handful) and treated Congress contemptuously. He said that he, after all, was the unique representative of the American people, so it was his job to implement their will, regardless of what any other body had to say about it.

We can only imagine their response if Trump had said such a thing. In fact, Trump says that executive orders are terrible and that the president should govern by consensus.

Now maybe he doesn’t mean that, and maybe he’d use executive orders anyway. But what if he’d said what their hero Teddy said?

Remember the last time Max, or any neocon, or anyone in the GOP establishment, warned us that Teddy wasn’t a good role model?

Me neither.

(2) Trump is boorish. Oh, sure. Too bad we can’t have more refined candidates like John McCain, who sing, “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.”

(3) Trump betrays conservative values. This supposedly disqualifies him. To the contrary, hasn’t it been the role of the GOP nominee to betray conservative values?

In 1996, Bill Kristol — who’s just so overcome with concern about the betrayal of conservative values, remember — enthusiastically endorsed Colin Powell for president.

(4) And by the way, just what are these “conservative values”? The leftist project of bringing democracy to faraway lands — the exact opposite of what Edmund Burke (who knew a little something about conservatism) would have recommended? Creating Medicare Part D? No Child Left Behind? Auto bailouts? Bank bailouts? Keynesian stimulus?

Had George W. Bush been eligible for a third term, would the same people who demand Trump debase himself in sackcloth and ashes for his betrayals of conservatism have done anything remotely similar to Bush?

Sure, we’d get the wringing of hands and the occasional anguished newspaper column, but then we’d get the stern lecture that if we don’t vote for Bush, civilization comes to an end.

See what I mean? Something is fishy here.

The alleged reasons for disliking Trump do not match the neocons’ actions. Therefore, they are not the real reasons.

Know what I think the real reasons are?

(a) They don’t trust him on foreign policy. He makes fun of their interventions and says the world would be much better off, and we’d be a lot richer if none of it had been done.

Now it’s true, here as elsewhere, that Trump is not consistent. He’s now calling for ground troops against ISIS, for instance. But his primary message is: we have too many problems at home to be traipsing around the world destroying countries. This is not music to a neocon ear.

(b) They can’t control him. He isn’t owned by anyone. He can’t be bought. The neocons, along with the GOP establishment they pretend to oppose, are control freaks. They can’t deal with someone who may be independent of them.

If you want to oppose Trump, knock yourself out. But at least, be honest about it. The neocons have repeatedly endorsed candidates whose deviations from orthodoxy are much more severe than Trump’s. So they’re lying.

As usual.

Good news though, now that you know you are dishonest or not paying attention, either one may have led you to have problems with Trump that you don't really have. For example, perhaps you are reacting to him emotionally out of ego, and therefore, just as above, have not paid close enough attention. If you did, you would support or not support one candidate over the other, rather than liking or disliking one candidate over the other.

Funny thing is that even if your screed were correct, it would still prove my point, not yours. Because if I (and many others) found those reasons the author dismissed as credible -- even if that opinion was due to emotions or ego, then his entire premise collapses.

The author's premise is that because he believes those stated reasons "don't add up", the neocons don't really believe those reasons either, and that therefore, they are hiding their real motives, which he plucks out of thin air and states as fact. But perhaps they, like me and all the other Trump opponents (at least according to you) are instead being fooled by their emotions, not trying to hide some sinister motive deliberately left unstated.

And before you so self-assuredly assume that I've ignored the difference between the neocon's actions; and my beliefs, that's a distinction without a difference. I'll address two of the author's incredibly thin arguments to illustrate.

He dismisses objections that Trump is not a conservative because Bill Kristol supported Powell in 1996. That's just laughable on its face. Wholly apart from the fact that Bill Kristol is just one guy whose opinions are not binding on others, that comparison falls apart because 1996 is not 2016, and 1996 Colin Powell is not 2016 Donald Trump. In 1996, we rolled out the corpse of Bob Dole to challenge Bill Clinton, which conventional wisdom believed would be an easy Clinton victory. Turned out to be true, with Clinton besting Dole by 8.5% and winning 31 states to Dole's 19.

Colin Powell was extremely popular at that time, and would have been a far more formidable candidate than Dole. And, 1996 Colin Powell did not appear at that time to be much less conservative than Dole. In other words, there was no legit conservative alternative to Powell running for President who would have had a chance of winning, and Powell was perceived generally as being better than Bill Clinton. Colin Powell subsequently lost his mind in 2008 and emerged as...something, but that wasn't something everyone in 1996 knew would happen.

Contrast that 1996 situation with 2016, where not only is there now a conservative alternative, but we're facing a very damaged Hillary Clinton rather than the very popular Bill Clinton. Now of course, maybe you'll argue that Cruz isn't really a conservative, or that Trump really is, or that Cruz can't win. But correct or not, none of those points is so obviously false that people can't honestly hold those opinions.

Another objection the author pooh-pooh's away is the claim that Trump is "boorish". The author dismisses that by pointing out that McCain sung "bomb Iran", and therefore (so I assume the logic goes) nobody could really be bothered by anything Trump has said. Now there's an argument that is disingenuous on its face.

One thing in particular that bothers me about Trump's "boorishness" is that I've always supported conservatism as much more logical/rational than progressivism. So, I look for candidate who actually engages on those issues and addresses them intelligently.

But repeatedly, when challenged on substantive policy positions, Trump's response would be to talk about his poll numbers, and to mock others for being lower in the polls. Sometimes, he'd mock someone's poll numbers (or audience numbers in the case of Hewitt) without them even attacking him at a debate. To me, that was junior high level crap, and completely unworthy of the person who is supposed to be the leader of the party/country. I wanted to hear answers to those questions, not personal putdowns of the people who were asking them.

I understand that there are legitimate reasons to support Trump, and I can see why some folks do. I think those arguments are legitimate even if I don't personally find them convincing. But the dismissal of all the objections to Trump as if they all don't matter at all, and don't genuinely concern a lot of people, is just bush-league, condescending crap.

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