converge.org
One of the big stories coming out of the Trump campaign is the intense hostility he is getting from the neocons, a major part of which is that they would be out of luck when it comes to positions in a Trump administration.
But that implies a huge vacuum in the area of foreign policy for Republicans. After all, neocons have dominated the GOP foreign policy establishment since the Reagan Administration and achieved unrivaled power in the George W. Bush administration.
But with the Trump campaign, the neocons are on the outside looking in, which is a major part of why they are defecting to Hillary or plotting a third party candidacy — anything to derail Trump. (Bill Kristol keeps plugging away. In his latest, he claims that even obscure Congressmen would be good candidates to run against Trump, although of course he would love it if Mitt Romney took up the cause. So would Jennifer Rubin. Their desperation is showing.)
Given that there is a real possibility that Trump could win, it must have occurred to the people surrounding the Koch brothers that, even though they would much prefer a free market libertarian-type conservative, there is now an opening for some fresh ideas for Republican foreign policy. In any case, the Charles Koch Institute sponsored a conference of foreign policy experts which, given that the Koch brothers are well-known to be Republicans, could only be interpreted as a repudiation of the neocons, likely with the aim of providing the basis for a refurbished GOP foreign policy establishment. No neocons were invited. And just as significant are some of those who were invited, including some very well-known names high on the neocon hate list. ...
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