EXCERPT: "Who killed the Anti-War Democrats?"
A sample reading of my weekend long read essay for American Greatness.
“After three generations the anti-war tendency within America’s oldest political party has been thoroughly alienated from its leadership and rendered impotent. The absence of this political failsafe means that America’s destructive overseas interventionism is less accountable than ever. . .
Donald Trump’s presidency would only accelerate the mind-meld between the Democratic Party leadership and the openly pro-war neoconservatives even though, as explained above, they were never substantively different in practice. What changed the most was the reaction of the media to various events of the Trump presidency regarding foreign intervention. . . At every step, Trump’s Democratic opponents and the press deemed the president’s diplomacy insufficiently severe toward Vladimir Putin and Russia. The visceral opposition to Trump overrode every other priority the Democrats had during his presidency, apart from their consistent decisions to vote in favor of the defense appropriations bills that came before Congress and reapproving the Patriot Act. The contradiction of accusing the president of being an agent of a strategic enemy, while simultaneously empowering the intelligence agencies under his command to surveil Americans and collect their personal data without prior cause, was continually ignored by media outlets. . .
As America enters its next decade, it is important to note why the political system desperately needs participants in influential positions to advocate for limiting the power of the military and intelligence communities and curtailing involvement in conflicts that are not essential to national security. . . Tom Hayden, one of the most iconic [Vietnam-era] protesters and a member of the Chicago Seven, eventually moved on and became a Democratic California state legislator. Hayden would go on to endorse both Bill and Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions while overlooking their records of war and surveillance. He even wrote an essay for The Nation, America’s oldest socialist magazine, explaining why he was voting for Clinton over Sanders in the Democratic primary. Hayden’s case is the textbook example of why the anti-war position is doomed to fail: there is no major institution that sees an interest in it prevailing.”
This has been an excerpt of my latest published piece. Read the full article here at American Greatness. The next newsletter will appear on Tuesday, Jan. 24.