The entire wrongheaded premise is that the US was trying to win these wars. It wasn't. Continuing the war was the point. Eternal spending was the point. Vietnam was an early, clumsy attempt but today they're much better. They got to milk Afghanistan for 20 years and got volcanically angry when their cash cow got cut off. There were generals and think tank Ph.Ds who wanted to occupy Afghanistan for another 50 years.
Eh I think it's both. The Nazis in charge of the United States were genuinely insane and hubristic enough to think they could "contain" Communism. These are the people who very nearly ended the world with nuclear hellfire.
You're totally correct, and that's really one of the most important disconnects between the politicians and your regular conservative - whether that's your standard MAGA chud who atrophies and hoots in front of their TV, or your online libertarians/ancaps, or even just a guy who doesn't really consume political media but generally just votes Republican for whatever brainwormed reason even though they probably wouldn't argue with getting universal healthcare. There's just not really much patriotism near the top of the pyramid, at least, not in the same way as the chuds feel.
It's all a grift that benefits the capitalists and by extension themselves, but which necessarily requires that developing nations (and in some ways, developed nations) are exploited for their gain, which in the case of waging wars for primitive accumulation and occupation, masquerades as patriotism. I don't doubt that some of them, perhaps many of them, genuinely feel that the America is a force for freedom and democracy, but your class position is connected with your cynicism in this regard.
And I think if you went and asked a conservative of any stripe "Do you think most politicians really care or are they just grifters?" then a majority of them would say "Oh no, I'm not stupid, of course they're grifters by and large!" And yet that doesn't connect to a greater systematic understanding of the world, where they internally say "Okay, well if I believe they're all grifters, and if they're in control of the country, then that must logically mean that this country is not doing what it's doing for patriotic reasons, but for cynical reasons. And those cynical reasons must be... getting resources and money from those countries, or from stopping ideological projects like revolutions against neoliberalism. And therefore there's a chance that we might be the villains here." Which is where dehumanization and racism come in to temporarily rescue their brains from the cognitive dissonance, like "Oh, but they're not really humans so it's still fine that we're exploiting them" or "Well, that sucks for them, but I get treats out of it and something something utils".
The Trump crowd wanted an end to US wars, which is bizarre considering who they are. But it was there, for sure. It's one of the reasons Trump was so hated by the blob in DC - what, end the profits? Bring an end to the gravy train? How dare you upset the apple cart!
Eh, some of the stuff written by the people running the war in the US suggest they largely did think there was something for the US to actually, decisively win in Vietnam, and there's a decent amount of doomer shit written by them as they slowly realize there's no real hope of that.
The entire wrongheaded premise is that the US was trying to win these wars. It wasn't. Continuing the war was the point. Eternal spending was the point. Vietnam was an early, clumsy attempt but today they're much better. They got to milk Afghanistan for 20 years and got volcanically angry when their cash cow got cut off. There were generals and think tank Ph.Ds who wanted to occupy Afghanistan for another 50 years.
Eh I think it's both. The Nazis in charge of the United States were genuinely insane and hubristic enough to think they could "contain" Communism. These are the people who very nearly ended the world with nuclear hellfire.
You're totally correct, and that's really one of the most important disconnects between the politicians and your regular conservative - whether that's your standard MAGA chud who atrophies and hoots in front of their TV, or your online libertarians/ancaps, or even just a guy who doesn't really consume political media but generally just votes Republican for whatever brainwormed reason even though they probably wouldn't argue with getting universal healthcare. There's just not really much patriotism near the top of the pyramid, at least, not in the same way as the chuds feel.
It's all a grift that benefits the capitalists and by extension themselves, but which necessarily requires that developing nations (and in some ways, developed nations) are exploited for their gain, which in the case of waging wars for primitive accumulation and occupation, masquerades as patriotism. I don't doubt that some of them, perhaps many of them, genuinely feel that the America is a force for freedom and democracy, but your class position is connected with your cynicism in this regard.
And I think if you went and asked a conservative of any stripe "Do you think most politicians really care or are they just grifters?" then a majority of them would say "Oh no, I'm not stupid, of course they're grifters by and large!" And yet that doesn't connect to a greater systematic understanding of the world, where they internally say "Okay, well if I believe they're all grifters, and if they're in control of the country, then that must logically mean that this country is not doing what it's doing for patriotic reasons, but for cynical reasons. And those cynical reasons must be... getting resources and money from those countries, or from stopping ideological projects like revolutions against neoliberalism. And therefore there's a chance that we might be the villains here." Which is where dehumanization and racism come in to temporarily rescue their brains from the cognitive dissonance, like "Oh, but they're not really humans so it's still fine that we're exploiting them" or "Well, that sucks for them, but I get treats out of it and something something utils".
:gold-communist:
The Trump crowd wanted an end to US wars, which is bizarre considering who they are. But it was there, for sure. It's one of the reasons Trump was so hated by the blob in DC - what, end the profits? Bring an end to the gravy train? How dare you upset the apple cart!
Eh, some of the stuff written by the people running the war in the US suggest they largely did think there was something for the US to actually, decisively win in Vietnam, and there's a decent amount of doomer shit written by them as they slowly realize there's no real hope of that.