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> An awful lot of people who were vocally against interventionism during the Bush administration became grudgingly accepting of it... You'd think that. It was

by ben509 7y ago

> An awful lot of people who were vocally against interventionism during the Bush administration became grudgingly accepting of it... You'd think that. It was amazing to see the mass protests while W was president that simply evaporated as soon as Obama was in office. But I disagree that people changed their minds. People were still protesting while Obama was president, and anti-war writers like Greenwald kept up a consistent position. What went on is the press, really a handful of editors, simply spiked stories about the wars and the protests, and by starving them of media coverage, they didn't weigh on people's minds so heavily. The higher-ups in a news office have to make judgement calls about what a news program is going to focus on, and to them some stuff feels more or less newsworthy depending on who's in office. It could be some shadowy conspiracy, or, more likely, just their personal unconcious biases.

notJim 7y ago
I think both of these things are true, actually. It does seem that some on the left are fine with war as long as it's a Democrat doing it. For example, look at Hillary Clinton's complicity during the Honduran coup, and how little criticism she received for it. Or deportation and drone strikes under Obama, as another example. However, it's also true that the anti-war movement died off partly due to failure essentially, as the Iraq War proceeded with essentially no resistance from elected officials, and no coverage from the mainstream media. I think this, more than partisanship, explains why it's basically dead in the water now. If the movement fails to achieve its goals, people will eventually go home. This all happened within W's term. Protest altogether didn't die out under Obama, however, Occupy Wall Street started in 2011, and was heavily critical of Obama's coziness with the finance industry. Within left movements that exist now, many seem to see a through-line from Occupy Wall Street. Overall, this speaks to the narrative about tribalism, because there's a tendency to see the opposing group as one mass, when in reality, there are different groups within each side that may disagree with each other as much as they do the nominally-opposed groups. This tendency is also exacerbated by the two-party system in the US that smushes what would really be 3-6 parties together into two.

by ben509 7y ago

notJim 7y ago

I think both of these things are true, actually. It does seem that some on the left are fine with war as long as it's a Democrat doing it. For example, look at Hillary Clinton's complicity during the Honduran coup, and how little criticism she received for it. Or deportation and drone strikes under Obama, as another example. However, it's also true that the anti-war movement died off partly due to failure essentially, as the Iraq War proceeded with essentially no resistance from elected officials, and no coverage from the mainstream media. I think this, more than partisanship, explains why it's basically dead in the water now. If the movement fails to achieve its goals, people will eventually go home. This all happened within W's term. Protest altogether didn't die out under Obama, however, Occupy Wall Street started in 2011, and was heavily critical of Obama's coziness with the finance industry. Within left movements that exist now, many seem to see a through-line from Occupy Wall Street. Overall, this speaks to the narrative about tribalism, because there's a tendency to see the opposing group as one mass, when in reality, there are different groups within each side that may disagree with each other as much as they do the nominally-opposed groups. This tendency is also exacerbated by the two-party system in the US that smushes what would really be 3-6 parties together into two.