John Kerry is about to step away from the Secretary of State perch he so longed to have. He might have been kept on in this singularly important cabinet position if his predecessor, Hillary Clinton, had won in November. But she turned out to be the loser. And the victor on November 8th, Donald Trump, has already named his choice to be the nation’s next top foreign policy official.
Losing Kerry means the “Liberal Eastern Establishment” has lost one of its carefully groomed members. Kerry entered this elitist group when he won a place in the secretive Skull & Bones society during his senior year at Yale. Elevated to membership in the sovereignty-despising Council on Foreign Relations in 1992, he has held membership in this semi-secret organization ever since. Any search of the CFR’s desires would show Kerry to be one of the group’s most eager champions.
As a U.S. senator, he was the Democratic Party’s nominee for President in 2004. Opposed by George W. Bush, another member of Yale’s Skull & Bones, the two were asked, while being interviewed by Meet the Press moderator Tim Russert, about the Skull & Bones secrets. They both deftly refused to discuss the topic. By ducking it and successfully moving on to some other topic, they effectively admitted something’s amiss. That alone should have disqualified each to be President. But it didn’t.
With the departure of Kerry from State, the Establishment loses one very determined ball carrier for its agenda. CFR members and their admirers advocate some of the most dangerous proposals put up for consideration in recent years. These include the Paris climate change pact, the nuclear deal with Iran, and the NAFTA-like trade agreement with eleven Pacific nations. John Kerry had a strong hand in creating each of these, even while he played a key role in steering the U.S. into restoring ties with the Castro-led tyranny in Cuba. He and Barack Obama got what they wanted regarding Iran and Cuba, both arrangements amounting to all give and no take for the United States. But their urgings that our nation formally commit to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris climate accord have failed.
What will Kerry do next? Will he hook on with one of the numerous globalism-promoting think tanks? Is there a university that might want him as an instructor? Will some corporation take him on because he has contacts with government officials both in America and elsewhere? So far, he isn’t saying. But while speaking in Washington to a liberal woman’s group interested in foreign affairs, he referred to the incoming Trump administration when he said,“ We’re going to have one hell of a debate over the course of the next few years. I promise you this — I am not going to go quietly into the night.”
In other words, John Kerry isn’t giving up advocacy of liberalism and internationalism. That he’ll have to continue as a private citizen, not a government official, is good news for America.
John F. McManus is president emeritus of The John Birch Society. This column appeared originally at the insideJBS blog and is reprinted here with permission.
