Trump will burn it all down...
Posted on 02/29/2016 2:41:44 PM PST by drewh
Donald Trump’s runaway success in the GOP primaries so far is setting off alarm bells among neoconservatives who are worried he will not pursue the same bellicose foreign policy that has dominated Republican thinking for decades.
Neoconservative historian Robert Kagan — one of the prime intellectual backers of the Iraq War and an advocate for Syrian intervention — announced in the Washington Post last week that if Trump secures the nomination, “the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton.”
Max Boot, an unrepentant supporter of the Iraq War, wrote in the Weekly Standard that a “Trump presidency would represent the death knell of America as a great power,” citing, among other things, Trump’s objection to a large American troop presence in South Korea.
Trump has done much to trigger the scorn of neocon pundits. He denounced the Iraq War as a mistake based on Bush administration lies, just prior to scoring a sizable victory in the South Carolina GOP primary. In last week’s contentious GOP presidential debate, he defended the concept of neutrality in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is utterly taboo on the neocon right.
“It serves no purpose to say you have a good guy and a bad guy,” he said, pledging to take a neutral position in negotiating peace.
This set off his rival Marco Rubio, who replied, “The position you’ve taken is an anti-Israel position. … Because you cannot be an honest broker in a dispute between two sides in which one of the sides is constantly acting in bad faith.”
The Jerusalem Post suggested that Rubio’s assault on Trump’s views on the Middle East was designed to win Florida. If that’s the case, it’s apparently not working — in the Real Clear Politics averaging of GOP primary polls in the state, Trump is polling higher than he ever has.
In his quest to take up George W. Bush’s mantle, Rubio has arrayed a fleet of neoconservative funders, ranging from pro-Israel billionaire Paul Singer to Norman Braman, a billionaire auto dealer who funds Israeli settlements in the West Bank. His list of advisers is like a rolodex of Iraq War backers, ranging from Bush administration alumni Elliot Abrams and Stephen Hadley, to Kagan and serial war propagandist Bill Kristol.
Kristol also sits on the board of the Emergency Committee for Israel — a dark money group that assails candidates it perceives as insufficiently pro-Israel. The group started airing an ad this weekend against Trump portraying him as an ally to despots like Bashar Assad, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Qaddafi — mostly because he argued that military invasions of Libya and Iraq left those countries worse off:
Even when Trump echoes certain elements of neoconservative orthodoxy — he repeatedly and emphatically calls for strengthening the military — he does so in a unique way. He talks not about spending more money but defying the “special interests” who make the Pentagon order “missiles they don’t want because of politics … because the company that makes the missiles is a contributor.”
Jacob Heilbrunn, author of They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons, suggested in July 2014 that neoconservatives might be preparing to ally with Hillary Clinton.
With Trump’s ascendancy, it’s possible that the parties will reorient their views on war and peace, with Trump moving the GOP to a more dovish direction and Clinton moving the Democrats towards greater support for war.
LOL, yep, trying to take Trump out is like trying to take down a high brick wall with a toothpick.
I understand why. It’s because they are stupid and live in the past. They are the “get off my lawn” type of conservatives who would let the world burn before they’d give up one of their 1988-style worldviews.
Any Republican could have beaten Trump back in August, if they had been man enough to do it. But, they all sat back and waited for him to self-destruct, as their handlers told them he would. The handlers were wrong and the candidates’ instincts were wrong. If they couldn’t detect the anger in the GOP base, then how clueless would they be as president?
Obama has been hugely effective at getting his agenda shoved down the throats of the American people because political handlers underestimate him, we try to pretend that he’s incompetent, and he talks to his base.
This is 2016. That’s what works in the USA today. It wouldn’t have worked in 1988 and hopefully it won’t work in 2032, but right now, it is what works and Trump knows how to work it.
Your guy isn’t being beaten. He gave up 5 months ago and thought he’d cruise to an easy win and took too long to get in the game. Five months ago, he was my guy too and when Trump started talking, I’d yell at the TV for someone else to jump up and be the better communicator with the better ideas and to understand what makes us mad as hell. He failed. He kept mumbling and whining, pretending that his God Cred would propel him to the WH. Somewhere between August and now, he became the Baptist Mitt Romney—a guy who thought he deserved it and didn’t want to ruffle his dress by fighting for it.
Trump will burn it all down...
Have a Super Tuesday!
One must question the mental status of anyone making such an utterly facile statement. Berniebots are 40% of Cankle's must-have electorate.
Trump for President.
They all schooled at the knee of Peretz and Kristol and daddy Podhertz
Amongst others.....non Jewish as well
Hell the Bush dynasty....fairly patrician WASP is a benchmark of neoconservatism
Israel first....cool...I’m typically with that
Social issues not so important....cause many are former Dems
Nation Building.....no Tks unless you’ve destroyed the enemy in total war first like 1945
Fiscal restraint.....they are not good at it because they believe in the good of the govt arm
Neocons are basically Rockefeller GOP bred with 70s Democrats who left after their youthful stint with McGovern Carter and Mondale as the party went and stayed left
Krauthammer is like their sage....a culture lib
All those grinning elites need to be lamp-posted.
Although I agree with the first statement, the second, petty follow up is a clumsy attempt to tar Trump with the Shrillary brush, the weapon of the Clinton Criminal Enterprises, Inc.
The Clinton huge enemies Database would make Nixon's enemy's list look like a pie baking stay at home housewife's shopping list.
“neutrality in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, “
The Jew-hater sides with the terrorists.
Having spent many hours doing just that, my uncertainty is in crowded company from the extreme left to the extreme right. I am in unexpected company with all sorts of weirdos.
But I can say the same here in FR, too.
Lying, adulterous, draft-dodger? You mean Limbaugh? Can’t be, you didn’t say “drug addict”.
You sound like you're kinda stuck there, Skippy...
Sunshine is elusive and may or may not be found here ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q3R7kvhnhE
I wouldn't go that far; yet.
A slick duplicitous sociopath, perhaps.
All conservatives should be at war with Trump being that he is the most liberal candidate on the GOP side.
I’m tired of liberal republicans: Dole, Bush, McCain, Romney and now Trump.
smirk
thanks for admitting you know
and limbaugh aint running, the lying adulterous draft dodger trump is
So what do the chicken hawks propose to do? Whack DT with their manpurses?
This Window Closed.
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