As Donald Trump is declared the presumptive Republican nominee for president, members of the neoconservative establishment, disgusted by the prospect of Trump in the White House, appear to be heading into the welcoming arms of someone more sympathetic to their imperial worldview: Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
Steve Schmidt, a prominent Republican strategist and former senior aide to Sen. John McCain, is just one of several political insiders to have made the case over the last couple days – and he has done so repeatedly while speaking as a contributor for MSNBC.
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“I have faith that Clinton’s foreign policy would align with what I’m looking for, and she would have my vote.”
—unnamed American Enterprise Institute stafferWith Trump at the head of the GOP ticket, Schmidt predicted on Chris Matthews’ show earlier this week, “You’re going to see a concerted and organized effort by the Hillary Clinton campaign to go after senior members of the Republican foreign policy establishment — big names. I’m not trying to put a partisan imprint on David Petraeus. But names like Petraeus, retired General Odierno, Colin Powell, Brent Scowcroft. Men and women who served in senior positions, in national security positions, in Republican administrations. The Clinton campaign’s going to go after them. They’re going to go after them forcefully.”
On Wednesday, the Clinton campaign at least hinted at this approach by posting a list of people it described as “prominent activists, journalists and elected officials” in the Republican Party who have decided to reject Trump, quoting some who explicitly said they would vote for Clinton if she ends up as the Democratic nominee. A verbatim sampling from the list (which was further updated by the campaign on Thursday) follows:
- Lifelong Republican, foreign policy expert Max Boot: “[Hillary Clinton] would be vastly preferable to Trump.’”
- Billionaire Bush-backer Mike Fernandez: “If I have a choice — and you can put it in bold — if I have a choice between Trump and Hillary Clinton, I’m choosing Hillary.”
- Elliott Abrams, former foreign policy advisor for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush: “won’t be voting for Trump”
According to journalist and political commentator Sam Sacks, who spoke with D.C.-based Sputnik Radio about the same dynamic on Thursday, observers can expect to “see a lot of the neoconservatives, people who were, ironically, very close in the George W. Bush administration… coming home and supporting Clinton, who has a foreign policy record that hews pretty neoconservative.”
Offering a taste of what this looks like, one unnamed Republican who works on national security issues for the right-wing American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C., explained to ThinkProgress why he won’t be supporting Trump in November and why Clinton might ultimately be the best choice.
“If a conservative emerges that approaches foreign policy in a principled, coherent manner, and that understands and values the important role that America plays in world affairs, I will support them,” he wrote in a text. “Otherwise, I have faith that Clinton’s foreign policy would align with what I’m looking for, and she would have my vote.”
With various factions of Republicans and so-called “movement conservatives” still holding the line on what has become known as a #NeverTrump effort, Ryan Cooper writes at The Week on Thursday that “Neocon elites are probably the likeliest faction to defect to Clinton, and what they’d want is blood-curdling aggressiveness overseas and Benjamin Netanyahu in charge of Middle East policy.”
Not that this is good news in the mind of Cooper. And though he acknowledged it “would be bad” in numerous ways, he also suggested it might not make that much difference in terms of the Republican base. Cooper writes:
That may well be accurate in terms of the electoral calculus, but the deeper question is how Clinton’s ties to the neoconservative movement will impact foreign affairs if she is elected to serve as commander-in-chief.
“You’re going to see a concerted and organized effort by the Hillary Clinton campaign to go after senior members of the Republican foreign policy establishment — big names.”
—Steve Schmidt, GOP strategist
Long known as an aggressive interventionist and regime change advocate on military matters—including her vote approving the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003; the leading role she played in the assault on Libya in 2011; her backing of the Honduran coup in 2012, her repeated call for a “no-fly zone” in Syria; and a stated commitment to back Israel’s subjugation of the Palestinian people despite the outcry of human rights campaigners—Clinton has an extensive and “hawkish” record.
And neither the question about the symbiotic intellectual relationship she has forged with the neoconservative movement, or the charge she is a neocon herself, is new. In 2014, the New York Times’ Jacob Heilbrunn wrote a lengthy examination of the question, “Are neocons getting ready to ally with Hillary Clinton?”
During an interview on Democracy Now! on Tuesday of this week, journalist Jeremy Scahill described Clinton as one of the “legendary Democratic hawks in modern U.S. history” and said the former secretary of state is what he likes to call “a cruise missile liberal” – someone who believes “in launching missiles to solve problems and show they’re tough across the globe.”
And, as a profile in the New York Times Magazine last month highlighted, Clinton has made a concerted effort—both as a U.S. senator and during her tenure heading the State Department—of fostering deep and meaningful ties to powerful members of the global military-industrial establishment.
As Mark Landler, the author of that profile and a new book on Clinton’s foreign policy mindset, reported in the Times:
Critics, of course, will take issue with the assertion that U.S. military intervention over the last two decades has done “more good than harm,” but few would argue that among the three candidates of the two major parties left standing, Clinton remains the one “true hawk.”
And, as a nascent body of evidence suggests, the members of the pro-war and military establishment know it.