Neocons on the Outside Looking In

By DON ROLLLINS

Until recently the hands-down, dominant strain of economic and geopolitical theory within the Republican Party, neoconservatism now risks becoming yet another casualty of their party leader’s government by fiat.

This on-again, off-again relationship between neocons and the president they helped elect is epitomized by the unfinished border wall once central to neoconservatism’s aims and pubic profile. The neocon camp was among the first Republican subgroups to seize upon a southern border campaign, delivering to Trump a signature issue ready for his off-script riffing for the base. He famously did not disappoint:

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best ...They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

Neocons could not have written those unrehearsed and now infamous words, but they had clearly provided Trump with the stage on which to say them. Now, political logic would dictate staying with the braintrust driving the border narrative, see it through and reap the rewards.

But over the course of Trump’s presidency, its become increasingly clear the neocons (or any other GOP subset) will never achieve lasting success in getting and keeping Trump focused on a coherent ideology. The wall began fading as soon as Trump was caught making false claims about its progress. For neocons in both houses, it was guaranteed political capital squandered.

The messy departures of neocon headliners, including staffer Steve Bannon and advisor John Bolton have further reduced neocons’ access not only to Trump, but his revolving inner circle. Neocons are not just on the outs — they’re on the outside looking in.

Neoconservatism has similarly taken a backseat with regard to foreign policy as reflected in the firing of neocon Michael Flynn as Trump’s original national security adviser. Traditionally among the most hawkish interventionist-minded of Republicans, neocons have little to show for their efforts to further destabilize the Middle East beyond the drone strike killing of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, and recurring sabre rattling with Iran North Korea.

None of which is to say neoconservatism is about to go the way of the dodo. Lindsay Graham’s neocon credentials were established when coming to the US House in 1995. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) has embraced the neoconservative foreign policies with great gusto, counseling junior house members to oppose the “America First” wing of the GOP. And American politics have a way of recycling even the least sensible of secular theologies.

The good news here is neoconservatism is for the moment not driving the Trump Train, at least not as applied to making policies sure to further harm a reeling nation and world. The bad news is once again, no one and nothing can influence Trump for any reasonable period of time.

Don Rollins is a Unitarian Universalist minister living in Hendersonville, N.C. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, October 1, 2020

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