President Trump can keep a core campaign promise and pull American soldiers out of the wars in Syria and Afghanistan at no real political cost to himself whatsoever. The people who voted him into the White House will have his back in the Republican ranks and any Democrat opposition is quite simply a mirage.
The Senate has issued a bipartisan rebuke to Trump's stated intention of withdrawing from the two conflicts, in a meaningless "advisory" gesture meant to carry water for the military industrial complex that greases many a political wheel on Capitol Hill. The war hawk Republican establishment figures, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), assumed their usual stout posture on matters of foreign policy, the only time these folks ever show spine on anything. And 25 out of 45 Democrat-aligned senators who voted joined with them to make for a seemingly impressive 68-23 tally in opposition to the president.
However, all major potential Dem 2020 presidential candidates in the Senate – Kamala Harris (D-CA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) – voted against the rebuke, which speaks much more loudly as a matter of practical concern.
The Way Is Clear
Trump is invulnerable with voters on this issue. He has so thoroughly routed the neoconservative faction that caused so much damage to this nation for some 30-odd years that he need not pay a whit of attention to their stammering objections. This battle was fought in 2015 and 2016, and a globalist Republican establishment was convincingly trounced. They do not have any support among grassroots GOP voters and, what's more, they know it.
It is also clear that no Democrat is going to defeat Trump in a general election by beating the drums of war. They would never make it out of the primary in a party pushing harder left by the day.
Warren, who has feuded bitterly with Trump, especially over his shots at her nonexistent Native American heritage, backed the president's push to exit Afghanistan completely in a January interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. She said there are "lots of different problems in Afghanistan, and what seems to be the answer from the foreign policy establishment? Stay forever. That is not a policy. We can't do that."
Green Light
The uniformity of support shown by potential Dem presidential candidates for Trump's planned exit from Syria and Afghanistan reveals the lie in polls showing Democratic voters are all of a sudden horrified by such moves, after almost two decades of consistently decrying U.S. wars overseas. Paul Bedard at the Washington Examiner noted that polls showing 52% of Dems surveyed disapprove of the withdrawals are undoubtedly related to an "anything Trump is for, I'm against" mentality and nothing more.
Bedard quotes a John Zogby poll that reports, "Over the last fifteen years, our polling of voters in the U.S. has shown that most Democrats vehemently opposed the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a stunning reversal of past polling, a majority of Democrats disagree with President Trump's plan to withdraw American troops from Syria and a plurality of Democrats disagree with the president on removing troops from Afghanistan."
Gee, I wonder what's changed? It's pretty obvious what is going on here, and Trump should not be the least affected by such spite. He will not have to run against it in 2020. The path is clear on the left and the right. There is no reason why Trump shouldn't immediately proceed full sail ahead to end these bloody and costly engagements. You made a promise to put America First, Mr. President – there is no genuine opposition among the people of this nation to stop you from ending these wars right now.
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