Why Are Militarist Neocons Backing Kamala Harris?

Efforts to bolster the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris by the D.C. foreign policy establishment kicked into overdrive over the course of the past week with the near simultaneous release of two open letters signed by hundreds of former U.S. national security officials.

It is an accelerated version of previous campaigns in 2016 and 2020, where ex-officials and military officers on both sides of the aisle vocalizing major opposition to Trump offer to give national security cred to the Democratic candidate — in this case Harris. For their part, the candidate virtually ignores that many of these endorsements are in many cases coming from odious individuals, including architects of wars and interventions that Democrats have openly criticized as stains on recent American history.

The first was a letter signed by over 100 former Republican national security officials stating that while they, alumni of every Republican administration from Reagan to Trump, “expect to disagree with Kamala Harris on many domestic and foreign policy issues” they also “firmly oppose the election of Donald Trump.”

According to the former GOP officials, Trump’s “susceptibility to flattery and manipulation by Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, unusual affinity for other authoritarian leaders, contempt for the norms of decent, ethical and lawful behavior, and chaotic national security decision-making” render him a danger to U.S. national security interests.