When Trump Goes to War, Progressives Follow

Despite promises from Barack Obama to end America’s wars, he expanded the theater of combat to Syria and Libya. Progressives gave Obama a pass on his war mongering ways. Now Ted Galen Carpenter, a Cato Institute senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies, points out that despite their near constant criticism of Donald Trump, when he escalates American military involvement, the progressive left has nothing but praise for the President. Ted writes:

It is no secret that Democratic Party leaders and their ideological allies in the media loathe Donald Trump.

Progressives have almost nothing good to say about the man or his policies—with one very big exception. When he embraces the kind of military interventions that typified previous administrations.

Progressives were especially enthusiastic about two Trump administration actions: the cruise-missile strikes against Syria in response to the Assad regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons, and the president’s decision to continue and intensify the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan.

Left-of center endorsements of the president’s decision to continue the 16-year-old mission in Afghanistan seemed even more widespread and supportive

When Barack Obama escalated the U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan and orchestrated a NATO assault to remove Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi from power, the criticism was sparse.

Many of today’s progressives, though, are far worse. They seem nearly as susceptible to blood lust as the most hawkish neoconservatives.