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The war on terror was bipartisan, though, and supported by political parties across the spectrum around the world. The UK's (nominally) social democratic Labour

The war on terror was bipartisan, though, and supported by political parties across the spectrum around the world. The UK's (nominally) social democratic Labour party pushed it, for example. I think the real demarcation line is that until very recently, there was exactly one political prescription: deregulate, reduce tax, and reduce state expenditure. The only question was, how much? Every major political party essentially agreed with this basic formula, which had the attached slogan 'there is no alternative', and if you suggested an alternative, the media would castigate you for being some kind of pie-in-the-sky radical. Trump, amongst others, kind of blew that whole idea up.

Apocryphon 5y ago
The War on Iraq had initial bipartisan support but became a hyper-partisan issue, maybe less so politically than it was as a cultural war. There were immense antiwar rallies prior to the invasion. It became a defining wedge issue in popular culture. "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." But I'm speaking specifically about the U.S.
- pasabagi 5y ago
  I'm not sure I'd call it 'partisan'. Opinions were divided, but in terms of 'party politics', especially mainstream party politics, I don't know. Kerry voted for the Iraq war, for instance. along with a majority of Democrats. I'd imagine positive votes were correlated with party influence, too. Regarding popular culture, you're totally right. I think on a grassroots level, politics never went away. It just got excluded from public discourse.
  - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
    Yes -- I think we pretend to ourselves that the worst excesses of the War on Terror were driven by people with whom we disagree, when just as many were driven by those we politically resemble.
    - pasabagi 5y ago
      Across the spectrum, too. Ian Bank's Culture series is a great big apologia for liberal interventionism, and he's literally a communist.
      - Apocryphon 5y ago
        It appears that all except for the last three Culture novels were written prior to 2001. It's not as if there wasn't pro-interventionism from the liberal side, under the elder Bush and Clinton administrations the U.S. became "the World's Policeman" after the Cold War, but within a multilateral aegis (U.N.-authorized interventions in Iraq, Somalia, NATO missions in the Balkans, etc.). The second invasion of Iraq was a drastic sea change. Many of America's traditional allies (France, Germany) rejected it. China and Russia condemned it. The U.N. was not behind it. It was preemptive and extrajudicial.
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    It might not have been partisan along direct party lines, but it was definitely a time of culture war. Just huge amounts of conservative media attacking certain Hollywood celebrities for being anti-war, pundits analyzing movies and shows and other media for any sort of critique of militarism or sympathy towards Islam, "support the troops" being the rallying watchword of the day, Hollywood in turn bashing evangelical culture, the invention of blue states vs. red states, etc. I remember seeing op-eds in mainstream news commenting how we were heading towards a divided nation, how cable news networks and talk radio were creating echo chambers: http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,699790,00.html http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,699790,00.h... http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,543800,00.html http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,543800,... Reading the editorials above, it's eerie how we've never left the post-2003 era. The technology has advanced, but the polarization remains the same.
    - dundarious 5y ago
      The Democratic party was quite cynical in its association with the anti-war movement of the time. As soon as they achieved some electoral success, their actions disavowed themselves (this is unsurprisingly not the only such example). I think this makes it accurate to call the war bipartisan (supported by both parties), even though there was a huge people's movement (largely aligned with one of those parties) opposing it.
qsort 5y ago
I don't think the model fits the data. Tax and state expenditure are relatively constant everywhere in the world[1], and there is no definite downward trend anywhere. If everyone were truly ideologically brainwashed into reducing government size, wouldn't have they done a better job at that? [1] https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-spending.htm#indicator-chart https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-spending.htm#in...

Apocryphon 5y ago

The War on Iraq had initial bipartisan support but became a hyper-partisan issue, maybe less so politically than it was as a cultural war. There were immense antiwar rallies prior to the invasion. It became a defining wedge issue in popular culture. "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." But I'm speaking specifically about the U.S.

pasabagi 5y ago
I'm not sure I'd call it 'partisan'. Opinions were divided, but in terms of 'party politics', especially mainstream party politics, I don't know. Kerry voted for the Iraq war, for instance. along with a majority of Democrats. I'd imagine positive votes were correlated with party influence, too. Regarding popular culture, you're totally right. I think on a grassroots level, politics never went away. It just got excluded from public discourse.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  Yes -- I think we pretend to ourselves that the worst excesses of the War on Terror were driven by people with whom we disagree, when just as many were driven by those we politically resemble.
  - pasabagi 5y ago
    Across the spectrum, too. Ian Bank's Culture series is a great big apologia for liberal interventionism, and he's literally a communist.
    - Apocryphon 5y ago
      It appears that all except for the last three Culture novels were written prior to 2001. It's not as if there wasn't pro-interventionism from the liberal side, under the elder Bush and Clinton administrations the U.S. became "the World's Policeman" after the Cold War, but within a multilateral aegis (U.N.-authorized interventions in Iraq, Somalia, NATO missions in the Balkans, etc.). The second invasion of Iraq was a drastic sea change. Many of America's traditional allies (France, Germany) rejected it. China and Russia condemned it. The U.N. was not behind it. It was preemptive and extrajudicial.
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  It might not have been partisan along direct party lines, but it was definitely a time of culture war. Just huge amounts of conservative media attacking certain Hollywood celebrities for being anti-war, pundits analyzing movies and shows and other media for any sort of critique of militarism or sympathy towards Islam, "support the troops" being the rallying watchword of the day, Hollywood in turn bashing evangelical culture, the invention of blue states vs. red states, etc. I remember seeing op-eds in mainstream news commenting how we were heading towards a divided nation, how cable news networks and talk radio were creating echo chambers: http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,699790,00.html http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,699790,00.h... http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,543800,00.html http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,543800,... Reading the editorials above, it's eerie how we've never left the post-2003 era. The technology has advanced, but the polarization remains the same.
  - dundarious 5y ago
    The Democratic party was quite cynical in its association with the anti-war movement of the time. As soon as they achieved some electoral success, their actions disavowed themselves (this is unsurprisingly not the only such example). I think this makes it accurate to call the war bipartisan (supported by both parties), even though there was a huge people's movement (largely aligned with one of those parties) opposing it.

qsort 5y ago

I don't think the model fits the data. Tax and state expenditure are relatively constant everywhere in the world[1], and there is no definite downward trend anywhere. If everyone were truly ideologically brainwashed into reducing government size, wouldn't have they done a better job at that? [1] https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-spending.htm#indicator-chart https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-spending.htm#in...