In short, if Rubio loses the nomination to a political novice and a different type of empty suit (Google “Donald Trump” and “nuclear triad”), it might be the clearest sign yet that his (and the neocons’) foreign policy views are a political liability. And if Trump ultimately prevails, that will be a clear—and tragic—sign that the public at large has turned its back not merely on the neocons’ reckless wars, but also on the peaceful international engagement that was the touchstone of U.S. foreign policy for over a century, but that Kristol and Kagan scorned as synonymous with “cowardice and dishonor.”

Within a week, we will know whether the neoconservatives’ latest gambit has succeeded or failed. If Marco Rubio can’t carry Florida, his aura of electability will be shattered once and for all.
What happens next is anyone’s guess, but some of Rubio’s supporters will hold their noses and get behind Ted Cruz, the man so loathsome that Sen. Lindsey Graham last month said “If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you.” A week later Graham had warmed up to the idea of Cruz as party standard-bearer, openly suggesting that he would, in the end, support Cruz if that is what it took to stop Trump.

But many of Rubio’s hard-core supporters will return to the party of their roots: The Democratic Party.

That this is even a possibility strikes some as newsworthy. It shouldn’t. Hillary Clinton agrees with the neoconservatives on a number of foreign policy issues and, as Michael Lind points out, a lot else. Neocons were never fully onboard with the fiscal conservatism of traditional conservatives and libertarians, and they merely tolerated the social conservatism of the Religious Right, chiefly because that movement provided the necessary foot soldiers to help elect their preferred candidates.