Why doesn't the US remain united in wartime?

[DanS]

Roosevelt had 17, 24, and 10 point spreads in '32, '36, and '40, respectively. A 7 point spread in '44 is miniscule in comparison, especially when a full blown war was still being prosecuted.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by DanS
Roosevelt had 17, 24, and 10 point spreads in '32, '36, and '40, respectively. A 7 point spread is '44 is miniscule in comparison.

So, since he kicked ass less in '44, that means it was a 'close' race?



It's like when two NFL teams get together and one team beats the other by 50, 32, and 24 points, and then the fourth time wins by 17, and someone calls it a close game!

Once again, was G.H.W. Bush's victory of Dukakis 'close'?

[GePap]

Maybe it was because the man was old, and was now running for his FOURTH term in office, meaning at the end of it he would have been president for 16 years.

Maybe more Americans felt that 12 years in office for a single man was a bit much? I mean, a Constitutional Ammendment and such as passed about the issue.

Plus, the man was not the figure of health, as his death a few months after taking his Fourth term more than amply shows.

[Alexander's Horse]

otoh Americans are mighty good haters - as Fidel Castro and MOBIUS will attest

[DanS]

In any event, I think a lot of the press is hyperventilating now. While I think war weariness is a real phenomenon, and the US suffers from it sometimes more than many countries, there is still majority support for keeping the troops in Iraq until the situation stablizes. The support number oscillates up and down, and now it's down -- so it's a story. So the president goes on TV to shore up support, etc.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by GePap


And as for the political, Americans aren;t as subservient and xenophobic as Aussies and their European master, of course. That's the simple answer

we're like ancient Crete - we send good archers for hire and noone invades us.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Let's also be clear: the Bushies did absolutely NOTHING to prepare the country for a long, difficult war that would require sacrifice. On the contrary, they reassured the public over and over that the war would be quick, clean, and painless. War weariness may be a general feature of American democracy, but it's certainly being abetted here by the sense that the whole war has been a bait-and-switch con job.

[Alexander's Horse]

The US has such an optimistic, positive success oriented culture. Long wars must be a real downer for you.

[Drake Tungsten]

Why doesn't the US remain united in wartime?

I was thinking about this today, actually. Eventually came to the unpleasant conclusion that Al Qaeda et al. might be right in their belief that America as a whole is weak and doesn't have the stomach for a real fight...

[Ted Striker]

Depends on the cause.

Afghanistan = Overwhelmingly just cause

Iraq = A string of expletives can only describe how immoral it is

[Mr. Harley]

The problem is that we are a Republic, a bastard cross between a parliamentary democracy and an oligarchy. When the public has been prepared for the war, as in WW2 and even WW1, there tends to be a fair degree of staying power. However, when the war is started without public support, or under false pretenses that get revealed it if last long enough, then there is trouble.

The people can vote in a Republic, and even though the accountability cycle can take up to six years, eventually politicians who pushed for a war without real public support (versus manufactured), can loose their office. The same occurs, as in Gulf 2, if the war/occupation lasts long enough, as any false pretenses sooner or later get revealed. If the war is still in progress when they are revealed, it can land the involved party in a boatload of trouble.

Gulf 1 for example had no false pretenses, it was sold as a very precisely limited operation, and it stayed exactly that. It did not loose Bush Sr. the election, IMHO. In fact he had very high approval numbers at it's conclusion, and if the election had been run then, he probably would have won.

In most Parliamentary Democracies, no one party controls the government, and so you often have a coalition in charge. They also can be forced into immediate elections via various Parliamentary outcomes, as in the (in)famous "Vote of No Confidence". So unless they have a very firm position, like Tony Blair, many Parliamentary Democracies are going to be very cautious about going to war without strong public support, as they can be booted out very rapidly. This accounts for many of the observed differences.

[Lancer]

When I was a kid I had to walk miles to school through all sorts of weather. My grandfather had to fell trees in Switzerland with an ax and drag them out of the forest with a team of horses to feed his mill. A hundred and 50 years ago 91.3% of all Americans lived on a farm and worked their asses off. The farther back you go, until you reach a certain point a couple of hundred years ago, the stronger and more self reliant, hard headed and obstinate people become. That's why you can have a 'hundred years war'. Those people didn't know how to quit. Also, I don't agree that it's just the US, but pretty much everywhere to some extent.

'91.3%' I plucked this outa my buttocks btw.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Why doesn't the US remain united in wartime?

I was thinking about this today, actually. Eventually came to the unpleasant conclusion that Al Qaeda et al. might be right in their belief that America as a whole is weak and doesn't have the stomach for a real fight...

I don't think that's so, and I don't think our history shows that. What is true is that Americans are realists and pragmatists: they want to fight wars worth fighting (e.g., WWII but not necessarily WWI -- and I can't believe no one has called AH on characterizing WWI as a war about freedom ) and they want to fight wars they can win (e.g., Gulf War I but not Vietnam). As I said above, I think the increasing disenchantment with Iraq is that it was sold as both of these things -- a war worth fighting and a war we can win -- but both these premises are now very open to question, and the administration has done very little to counteact this because they never admit to any errors in judgment, ever.

[DanS]

I think "increasing disenchantment" is too directional a way of putting it. Support has oscillated. The numbers now are about what they were in March, 2004. Pretty amazing, since the torrent of bad news only let up for about a week in the meantime.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Lancer
When I was a kid I had to walk miles to school through all sorts of weather. My grandfather had to fell trees in Switzerland with an ax and drag them out of the forest with a team of horses to feed his mill. A hundred and 50 years ago 91.3% of all Americans lived on a farm and worked their asses off. The farther back you go, until you reach a certain point a couple of hundred years ago, the stronger and more self reliant, hard headed and obstinate people become. That's why you can have a 'hundred years war'. Those people didn't know how to quit. Also, I don't agree that it's just the US, but pretty much everywhere to some extent.

'91.3%' I plucked this outa my buttocks btw.

Horrible. It's actually 91.37%. Everyone knows that.