In what party do those Republicans and neocons who supported Clinton and rejected Trump find a home? The list is very long; the link provides one such listing. Do party members now get denied funding and endorsement by their own party? Do they get purged? Does Trump rebuild the party with his own people to replace the deserters? Is there some sort of oath or contract by which Republicans who supported Clinton can cleanse themselves and come back into the Republican fold? I don’t think so. Who can trust them now? How can they show renewed and permanent loyalty after deserting the Trump candidacy? These people are politically homeless, unless they become Democrats.
Do the neocons who deserted the Republican party for Clinton now stay with the Democratic party? Robert Kagan is chief among them. A long list of neocons published a letter that rejected Trump. There were 122 people, every one a Republican, who signed this letter!
In my opinion, these neocons cannot now claim a home in the Republican party. As I see it, they’ve placed themselves outside any possible appointment within the party or the Trump administration. I can’t see any reason why Trump or Republicans would want them. They’ve burned that bridge. What will be their new political home? Do the Democrats welcome them with open arms?
Trump doesn’t have to listen to these neocons, welcome them, build bridges to them, hire them, seek their support or pay any attention whatsoever to their think tanks, speeches and working papers. They have defined themselves by their opposition to him. This opens up an ideal opportunity to reduce their political influence to levels where they are only background noise.
A lot of people who want to speak and act for the American people in a public capacity have used a lot of very strong language against Trump. They unwisely assumed he didn’t have a chance to win. They have marginalized themselves in the political process. Obama has done the same by declaring Trump as “unqualified” and “uniquely unqualified”, even after meeting with him. (I fail to see how a term in the U.S. Senate qualified Obama to be president in the sense of some sort of training or experience. Does mingling with the establishment qualify one? The constitutional requirements to run for president are few and easily met.)
Despite these considerations, all of these neocons, turncoat Republicans and defeated Democrats live on to fight another day and again regain power and influence. It is not that difficult for them to make a comeback if they have patience. It’s happened before. They can take advantage of all sorts of events, failures, mistakes and limitations to criticize a new administration and offer their own remedies. They can always say “I told you so”. There are bound to be foreign events that they can construe as defeats to America and victories for those they term “enemies”. There is no end of possible events that can cast a shadow on the new administration – a recession, an inflation, a terror attack, a health problem, instability overseas, etc. The electorate is bound to be disappointed on many fronts because the existing system has so many faults. Trump can’t fix them. The people expect more from government than it should be doing or can do even if it tries. The inevitable disappointments provide the ammunition for the “outs” to make their comeback and once again become the “ins”.
2:48 pm on November 14, 2016
