On Wednesday, 60 prominent Republican former national security officials and experts released an open letter calling Donald Trump a dangerous foreign policy naif who as president "would use the authority of his office to act in ways that make America less safe" and pose "a distinct threat to civil liberty in the United States." Therefore, the signatories concluded, "as committed and loyal Republicans, we are unable to support a party ticket with Mr. Trump at its head. We commit ourselves to working energetically to prevent the election of someone so utterly unfitted to the office."
The national security experts, as they say at the top of the letter, do "represent a broad spectrum of opinion." There are noted hawks like Robert Kagan, Max Boot, Randy Scheunemann, John Noonan, and Roger Noriega, and also more centrist experts like Robert Zoellick, Daniel Drezner, and Andrew Natsios. And after this, it's hard to imagine any of them having a job in a Trump administration.
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The target audience of the letter is probably not hard-core Trump supporters, since "establishment" isn't a selling point for that segment of the electorate. But sometimes you have to take a stand, and you can read the GOP national security community's letter at War on the Rocks.
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