Six months ago we explained why the neocons hate Donald Trump and with his meteroric rise that dislike has only grown stronger and more desperate (and we suspect Trump's view of the hawkish warmongers has risen right alongside it). In fact, as The Hill reports, the rise of Donald Trump is threatening the power of neoconservatives, who find themselves at risk of being marginalized in the Republican Party. Whereas neoconservatism advocates spreading American ideals through the use of military force, Trump has made the case for nationalism and a smaller U.S. military footprint. Trump, for all his contradictions, gives voice to the “isolationist” populism that neocon confederates despise, and which is implanted so deeply in the American consciousness. Why us? Why are we paying everybody’s bills? Why are we fighting everybody else’s wars? It’s a bad deal! And that is why neocons hate The Donald.

Neoconservatism was at its height during the presidency of George W. Bush, helping to shape the rationale for the U.S. invasion of Iraq; but now, as The Hill details, the ideology is under attack, with Trump systematically rejecting each of its core principles.

Whereas neoconservatism advocates spreading American ideals through the use of military force, Trump has made the case for nationalism and a smaller U.S. military footprint. In what Trump calls an "America First" approach, he proposes rejecting alliances that don't work, trade deals that don’t deliver, and military interventionism that costs too much. He has said he would get along with Russian President Vladimir Putin and sit down with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un — a throwback to the “realist” foreign policy of President Nixon. As if to underscore that point, the presumptive GOP nominee met with Nixon's Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger, earlier this week, and delivered his first major foreign policy speech at an event last month hosted by the Center for National Interest, which Nixon founded.

Leading neoconservative figures like Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan have assailed Trump’s foreign policy views. Kagan even called Trump a “fascist” in a recent Washington Post op-ed.

"This is how fascism comes to America, not with jackboots and salutes (although there have been salutes, and a whiff of violence) but with a television huckster, a phony billionaire, a textbook egomaniac 'tapping into' popular resentments and insecurities, and with an entire national political party — out of ambition or blind party loyalty, or simply out of fear — falling into line behind him," wrote Kagan, who is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Other neoconservatives say Trump’s foreign policy stances, such as his opposition to the Iraq war and the U.S. intervention in Libya, are inconsistent and represent “completely mindless” boasting.

“It’s not, ‘Oh I really feel that the neoconservatism has come to a bad end and we need to hearken back to the realism of the Nixon administration,’ ” said Danielle Pletka, senior vice president for foreign and defense policy at the American Enterprise Institute. “Do you see anybody who voted for Donald Trump saying that? Absolutely not,” she said. “I don’t think Donald Trump believes in anything but Donald Trump, and that’s why the right label for his movement is Trumpism — nothing else.” Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, agreed, saying that to associate Trump to such a clear school of thought as realism "would be being a little bit generous." "[Neoconservatives] are concerned for good reason," said O'Hanlon, a Democratic defense hawk "These people don't think that Trump is prepared intellectually to be president." "It's not just that their stance of foreign policy would be losing .. .all foreign policy schools would be losing influence under Trump with very unpredictable consequences," he added.

Despite the opposition he faces in some corners of the GOP, polls indicate that Trump’s message is in line with the public mood.

A recent Pew poll found that nearly six in 10 Americans said the U.S. should "deal with its own problems and let other countries deal with their own problems as best they can," a more isolationist approach at odds with neoconservative thought.

Experts say the isolationist sentiment is prevalent in the Democratic Party as well.

“The [Bernie] Sanders supporters charge Hillary Clinton with never seeing a quagmire she did not wish to enter, and basically with not just complicity, but a leading role in contriving some of the worst disasters of American foreign policy in this century,” said Amb. Chas Freeman, a senior fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, and a former Nixon and George H.W. Bush official. "This is the principle reason that Hillary Clinton is having so much trouble putting Bernie Sanders away," said Mearsheimer, who supports the Vermont senator. "Sanders is capitalizing on all that disenchantment in the public, and Hillary Clinton represents the old order."

But the ideological battle over foreign policy is playing out more forcefully in the GOP, and as we concluded previously,