If they turn the country into a war machine they give themselves a chance to reset the board like they did in the 40s. It is deeply ingrained in the US zeitgeist to think this way. It is both profitable for the MIC and synergizes with settler nightmares and our expectations of the US being the preiminent, sovereign, and morally legitimate civilization in the world. The benifit is as much spiritual as it is anything else but the material gains may be more than we think because the only way to bring back a golden age is to, as usual, make someone else pay for it. I hear it from people that don't agree with the US government about much of anything that they are willing to participate in nationalism if it means the US keeps its place on top. We will likely have to find out just how anti imperialist US citizens really are and I assume there will be some disappointment.
Thing is that doing that would require massive government intervention, and that's just not possible in the current political climate. Just look at how the whole CHIPS act is going, rebuilding domestic industry to support a MIC that could take on China would require an effort that's orders of magnitude bigger than that. On top of that, there are demographic limitations here as well. You need an education system that can produce skilled workers, you need people who can operate factories, engineers, scientists, etc. It will literally take decades to create the workforce able to build the infrastructure necessary.
If they turn the country into a war machine they give themselves a chance to reset the board like they did in the 40s. It is deeply ingrained in the US zeitgeist to think this way. It is both profitable for the MIC and synergizes with settler nightmares and our expectations of the US being the preiminent, sovereign, and morally legitimate civilization in the world. The benifit is as much spiritual as it is anything else but the material gains may be more than we think because the only way to bring back a golden age is to, as usual, make someone else pay for it. I hear it from people that don't agree with the US government about much of anything that they are willing to participate in nationalism if it means the US keeps its place on top. We will likely have to find out just how anti imperialist US citizens really are and I assume there will be some disappointment.
Thing is that doing that would require massive government intervention, and that's just not possible in the current political climate. Just look at how the whole CHIPS act is going, rebuilding domestic industry to support a MIC that could take on China would require an effort that's orders of magnitude bigger than that. On top of that, there are demographic limitations here as well. You need an education system that can produce skilled workers, you need people who can operate factories, engineers, scientists, etc. It will literally take decades to create the workforce able to build the infrastructure necessary.