Rightwingers who said Trump would conquer neoconservatism are howling with rage after a missile attack on Syria – and others are trying to justify it

Down is up and up is down. Last week, Mr “America first” rained down Tomahawk missiles on a country whose relationship to the US’s vital interest is less than clear. Along with some outbuildings on a Syrian airfield, conservative media was set alight.

The “alt-right” nationalists, paleocons and dissident rightwingers who hailed Trump as the conquerer of neoconservatism are howling with rage. The neocons are, within the limits imposed by age and a sedentary life, doing a fair impression of dancing a jig. Only a select few are considering the possibility that Trump’s first attack on another country might have arisen from the same swamp of incoherence and impulsivity as everything else his administration does.

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Publication: Infowars

Author: Paul Joseph Watson

Why you should read it: Put yourself in Alex Jones’s shoes. You’ve given up your decades-old position as a conspiracy-minded outsider to throw in your lot with Trump. You’ve gone from alleging pedophilic conspiracies in high places and governmental collusion with black helicopter globalists to defending the commander-in-chief against all critics. You’ve implied that the president comes to you for advice. And then the guy does precisely what he said he would never do and bombs Syria. Your offsiders are saying that they’re “off the Trump train”. Principle seems to demand that you do, too. How do you square the circle? How do you avoid a humiliating climbdown? Easy-peasy – pump out something on the website arguing that somehow, despite bombing Syria, Trump is still fighting the neocons.

Excerpt: “Trump’s aim with the air strike was to destroy Syria’s remaining chemical weapons to make Assad follow through on the deal. If he didn’t act, Trump would have been eviscerated by his critics as being equally as weak as Obama.

However, increasingly prominent neo-cons within the administration, led by National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster, are exploiting the circumstances to maneuver Trump into a position where he is pressured into green lighting a full scale ground war, an attack on Damascus and a confrontation with Russia.”

Publication: Commentary

Author: Noah Rothman has long been this column’s favourite neoconservative

Why you should read it: Rothman makes an effort to finesse the problem that everyone might want to claim Trump faces: Trump has no clear foreign policy doctrine. But this isn’t because Trump’s decision-making is largely an outcome of whatever he happens to see on TV, according to Rothman – it’s because these things take time.

Excerpt: “This display of self-consciousness by pro-Trump nationalists is fitting. Their efforts to retrofit a compelling rationale onto whatever Trump felt like saying in the moment, often before adoring crowds that dictated the tempo and content of the president’s campaign-trail speeches, was always a fraught prospect. They deserve the terror that’s now gripping them. Yet, in their anxiety, Trump’s ‘Originals’ have created a set of conditions that no president should be expected to meet. Of course, there is no such thing as the ‘Trump doctrine.’ It’s day 80.”

Publication: Washington Examiner

Author: Byron York is a rare beast – a fixture in rightwing media who makes an effort to subordinate his partisanship to his journalism.

Why you should read it: York makes the point – based on polling and discussion with political pros – that Trump’s attack seems to have bewildered many voters. This is not what he campaigned on – indeed, he seemed to promise to rein in the war machine to focus on the domestic issues that have turned voters against the political establishment. He may have won over the generals, but what about his own foot soldiers?

Excerpt: “Trump’s no-explanations style is particularly bad for his political fortunes because, beyond what he promised would be a quick, intense, and winning effort to destroy Isis, he did not campaign on the idea of going to war. Just the opposite; Trump campaigned day after day on a platform of keeping the United States out of the mess in the Middle East. Trump often excoriated George W Bush for the ‘big, fat mistake’ of going to war in Iraq.”

Publication: The American Conservative

Author: Former Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchanan founded the American Conservative after abortive runs for president through the 1990s and early 2000s. His paleoconservative isolationism troubled George HW Bush in 1992 and gave him a platform to launch the concept of culture war.

Why you should read it: No one got played by Trump more comprehensively than Buchanan. Like many others, he saw Trump as a more populist rerun of his own tilts at the Republican nomination in the 90s. Throughout the campaign, he acted as a virtual surrogate, heaping effusive praise on what he took to be Trump’s isolationist instincts. But like everything Trump says, his stated inclinations on the Middle East were vague and open to reversal.

Excerpt: “As in most wars, the first shots fired receive the loudest cheers. But if the president has thrown in with the neocons and War Party, and we are plunging back into the Mideast maelstrom, Trump should know that many of those who helped to nominate and elect him – to keep us out of unnecessary wars – may not be standing by him.”

Publication: The Weekly Standard, Kristol Clear podcast

Author: Michael Graham fulfills his appointed weekly role of tossing flattery and softball questions in the few gaps in a rant by William Kristol, neocon eminence grise, war fan, and Weekly Standard founder.

Why you should listen: While Buchanan glowers, his old neocon rival Kristol is left to gloat. It used to be the far right, paleocons, and old-school nationalists had to retrofit a rationale for Trump’s actions. Now it’s the turn of their sworn enemies, the neocons, to explain in hindsight how Trump’s channel-surfing whims are actually part of a plan that makes sense.

Excerpt: “From 1:55, listen to Kristol’s self-serving explanation of how Trump’s Syria strike was a result of him being ‘mugged by reality’. Reality, despite all evidence to the contrary over the past two decades, is here understood to correspond with neoconservative doctrine.”