Some of President Donald Trump's most fervent campaign supporters were dismayed Thursday after he ordered a missile strike against Syria, the New York Times reported. The supporters, mostly conservatives, charged that the president had broken his promise to keep the United States out of another Middle East conflict.
Prominent writers and bloggers on the far right attacked Trump, accusing him of turning against his voters by waging an attack that he previously said would be a terrible idea. They also criticized him for launching the strike without first seeking congressional approval — something he said on Twitter in 2013 would be a "big mistake."
Paul Joseph Watson, an editor at Infowars, said on Twitter that Trump "was just another deep state/neocon puppet." He added in his tweet, "I'm officially OFF the Trump train."
Richard Spencer, who coined the term “alt-right,” said he condemned the attack and hinted at supporting another presidential candidate in 2020: Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, a Democrat. Gabbard met with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria in January and on Thursday criticized the missile strike as shortsighted and reckless, the Times reported.
Others, however, praised the president for his quick military decision, which came three days after the Syrian government’s deadly chemical weapons attack on its own people, including children.
Laura Ingraham, a conservative commentator, tweeted that the strike united three critics of the president — Republican senators Marco Rubio of Florida and John McCain of Arizona, as well as his Democratic opponent last fall, Hillary Clinton.
A few hours before the missile strike, the far-right blogger Mike Cernovich warned his followers in a live video that the United States was going to attack Syria. “Remind Trump who supported him,” he told his viewers. “We got to stop him.”
Overseas, French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen accused Trump of trying to be the "world's policeman" and suggested that it could backfire, The Associated Press reported. Le Pen has expressed support for Assad in the past, and said on France-2 television Friday that she was "surprised" by Trump's sudden move.
Le Pen said that Trump indicated he would not make the U.S. "the world's policeman, and that's exactly what he did yesterday.”
Writing on Twitter, web developer Evan Rose wrote that “on the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI, we celebrate by kicking off WWIII. Congrats all!” While World War I began in 1914, Rose was referring to the centennial of American involvement in the war.
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