Max Boot, a hard-line war hawk and self-declared “American imperialist,” lauded the Democratic presidential front-runner in an op-ed in The Los Angeles Times on Sunday, citing her as a much better alternative to presumed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

“If I’m not for Trump, who am I for?” wrote Boot, a lifelong Reagan Republican, in the article.

“Hillary Clinton is a centrist Democrat who is more hawkish than President Obama and far more principled and knowledgeable about foreign affairs than Trump, who is too unstable and erratic,” he answered.

“For all her shortcomings (and there are many), Clinton would be far preferable to Trump,” he added.

Boot however stressed that, while he is a fan of Clinton, he is “not prepared to join the” Democratic Party, “because so much of it appears to be well to her left.”

It would be difficult to find someone more hawkish than Max Boot.

Boot has openly expressed support for “American imperialism.” He insists that there is no need to run away from the label “imperialism,” arguing the “greatest danger is that we won’t use all of our power for fear of the ‘I’ word.”

A senior fellow in national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, Boot worked as a foreign policy advisor to John McCain in 2008, Mitt Romney in 2012 and Marco Rubio this year.

He has previously publicly declared that Clinton would be “vastly preferable” to Trump.

In his Los Angeles Times op-ed, Boot took his statements a step further and accused Trump of “killing” the Republican Party he so loved.

“I have been a Republican as long as I can remember,” Boot wrote. “My allegiance to the GOP was cemented during the 1980s, when I was in high school and college and Ronald Reagan was in the White House.”

Reagan “shaped my worldview,” with his “pro-free trade and pro-immigration” views, and his belief in “limited government at home and American leadership abroad,” Boot explained.

“For the time being, at least,” he said, Reagan’s “Republican Party is dead.” The Tea Party “wounded” it, and Trump “killed” it.

Boot correctly identified Trump as “an ignorant demagogue who traffics in racist and misogynistic slurs,” but his biggest reservations were with the GOP front-runner’s foreign policy.