Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton has a neocon problem.

Clinton has just been endorsed for president by neoconservative intellectual, Robert Kagan, a longtime Republican who recognizes that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, the presumptive favorite, would be hostile to neoconservative foreign policies.

Investigative reporter, Robert Parry, explores the fallout from Kagan’s endorsement. “…the fact that a leading neocon, a co-founder of the infamous Project for the New American Century, has endorsed Clinton raises questions for Democrats who have so far given the former New York senator and Secretary of State mostly a pass on her pro-interventionist policies.

Kagan’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton is not surprising. Clinton’s bellicose behavior as US senator and Secretary of State demonstrate her willingness to use any means to maintain the US empire. Clinton has never met a weapons system or regime change scheme that she didn’t whole hardily approve of. She voted for the invasion of Iraq, chortled with glee at the death of Libyan president, Gaddafi, and has repeatedly called for the overthrow of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and establishment of a no-fly zone there. Hillary also backed the coups in Honduras and Ukraine. Clinton’s decisions have been disastrous for America, but for the neocons, who favor continuation of the US’s world-wide empire, these actions are held in high regard.

Kagan explains his decision. “I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy. …  If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue … it’s something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else.”

The coronation is complete. Hillary Clinton is now officially the neocon candidate. The queen of the neocons.

Bernie had better get busy. So far his campaign has focused laser-like on domestic issues, but he needs to define a different foreign policy.

Parry says that to have any hope to win the Democratic nomination, Sanders needs to make Hillary’s neoconservative foreign policy an issue. “Obviously, many anti-war Democrats would prefer that Sanders step forward as their champion and offer a cogent explanation about how the neocons and liberal hawks have harmed U.S. and world interests by spreading chaos across the Middle East and now into North Africa and Europe. But that would require Sanders embracing the word “realist” and asking whether his rival is a neocon.”

To halt America’s glide path into deep state plutocracy it’s imperative to expose the danger the neocons pose for America’s constitutional form of government.

Luckily, there are political and media insiders who are starting to speak out.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reemerged with an important article in Politico, decrying the neocon inspired US foreign policy. “America’s founding fathers warned Americans against standing armies, foreign entanglements and, in John Quincy Adams’ words, “going abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” Those wise men understood that imperialism abroad is incompatible with democracy and civil rights at home.”

Longtime reporter, Steven Kinzer, writes in the Boston Globe about how “The Media Are Misleading the Public on Syria”  In this age of mealy-mouthed reporting, Kinser is refreshingly direct. “Coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press.”

In Congress, Hawaiian Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D) has been bravely speaking out against US policies of regime change in Syria.

Recently, in a stunning move, Gabbard, resigned from the Democratic National Committee to support Bernie Sanders for president. “There is a clear contrast between our two candidates with regard to my strong belief that we must end the interventionist, regime change policies that have cost us so much.” She added, “This is not just another ‘issue.’ This is the issue, and it’s deeply personal to me. This is why I’ve decided to resign as Vice Chair of the DNC so that I can support Bernie Sanders in his efforts to earn the Democratic nomination in the 2016 presidential race.”

The endorsement of Representative Gabbard is momentous. Bernie now has a chance to articulate a clear alternative to Hillary’s neocon influenced foreign policy.

Dave Lindorff, at Counterpunch argues that Sanders should make Gabbard his vice-president to give him credibility and respectability on foreign policy. “Gabbard, while only a second-term member of the House, is no lightweight when it comes to US foreign and military policy. A major in the Hawaii National Guard who volunteered for two tours of duty in Iraq, she is one of only two female members of Congress to have served in a war zone…Sanders, who has been avoiding talking about the country’s military budget and its imperialist foreign policy, should use the opportunity of Gabbard’s defection from the DNC to announce that if elected he would immediately slash military spending by 25%, that he would begin pulling US forces back from most of the 800 or more bases they occupy around the world, and that he would end a decades-long foreign policy of overthrowing elected leaders around the globe.”

The 2016 election is exposing some amazing fissures in our two party system, where the neocons are fleeing from Republican-Trump and the danger he poses to their dreams of empire and retreating to the Democratic-Clinton redoubt. Of course, the neocons started with the Democrats, so it’s only fitting for them to return to their native habitat.

Still, the idea of the neocons endorsing Hillary has got to sting for liberal Clinton supporters. Maybe neocon intellectual Kagan screwed up with his endorsement of Clinton and should have just kept it on the down low? It certainly wouldn’t be the first time a neocon screwed up.