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Is there a neocon base?





Now is a good time to wonder: do neoconservatives have any support in the broad voting population? 

Or has the whole 'neocon" thing of the last 60 years or so been an elaborate game within the elites, intellectual policy-wonkish, and politically connected?

This is a big question.  After all, the Cheney family is regularly classified as neocon. Dick and Lynne and Liz. Other prominent example of Trump-resisting Republicans fit the label pretty nicely: Bolton, Haley, the latest Podhoretz to be running COMMENTARY.... 

If we are headed for a rematch one would expect neocon sentiment to side with Biden over Trump after all the water under the bridge.  After Trump has made so clear his utter contempt for them. But ... does it matter? Do the neocons have the numbers to make themselves matter? 

Here is a potentially relevant factoid. COMMENTARY says it has 1.2 million monthly page views on average. So there are at least that number of people willing to take neocon ideas seriously. (Various assumptions are embedded there -- dispute them at your leisure. I'm genuinely only asking the question here.)

At any rate: 1.2 million is not nothing. Heck, in the spring of 2020, the Democratic Party's nomination was effectively decided by the South Carolina primary.  Only a little more than one half of one million votes were cast in that. 

But in general even if those 1.2 million page views were a solid voting bloc, they would matter only if they were properly concentrated in one or a small number of swing states. 

Just some thoughts.... 

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