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Notes -
I've seen some writings indicate that Korean War was one of the most widely popular and unopposed wars in American history, with even most leftists supporting it (apart from CPUSA, of course, but it was at a very low point in public support or indluence), but what little opposition existed was mostly among the Right.
If there seems to be one fair constant in American history, it's that the South loves war and at the very least considerable and consistent parts of Northern states are far more resistant. As far as I've understood, whether it was War of 1812, Mexican-American War (as mentioned), both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam or Iraq/Afghanistan, (white) South eagerly went to war while there were comparatively more New Englanders and Midwesterners that resisted war. I'm not fully sure about the Spanish-American War, and of course the American Revolutionary War and the American Civil War were sui generis events.
The switch between Dems and Reps as to which is more of a "war party" just so happens to be parallel to the switch of South from Democratic to Republican. Sure, there were other reasons for this switch, but it seems quite uncommon to specifically consider foreign policy one of the reasons for this switch, even though an argument could well be made that it must have played a part. Of course I'm not sure how the current conflict in Ukraine fits this schema, though it should also be noted that America is currently not fighting a direct shooting war in Ukraine, or at least there's no firm proof it's doing so.
Considering this, I've always kind of wondered about how many paleocons and paleolibertarians in the USA seem to combine nostalgia and admiration for the South as a region with a firm noninterventionist or even pacifist policy. It would certainly seem strange to admire and nostalgize by far the most constantly belligerent region in the United States and similarly advocate noninterventionism, without seemingly even feeling the slightest desire to explain this seeming contradiction.
Sure, I know, the argument is that it was that devil Lincoln and the Northern victory in Civil War that "led to the creation of the American Empire", but still, that same victory - and the marginalization of the South as a region - was followed by decades of relative lack of American intervention in the outside world. There was the Spanish-American War, occupation of Hawaii and such, but still, it took 50 years for US to get into its next major war - WW1, incidentally happening during the presidency of the first Southern president since the Civil War.
This doesn't seem so hard to me, the south has an honor culture, much of libertarianism thought is intuitive as a kind of retributive honor code.
But that sort of a retributive honor code has also contributed greatly to American willingness to participate in foreign wars, especially after an incident in the style of Maine or Tonkin Gulf attacks.
Interesting that you mentioned those in particular, given that both had shades of false-flagging/undeserved blame towards the enemy.
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This may be true, I admit I have read next to nothing about domestic opposition to the Korean War. But I would be interested in reading any recommendations that you have.
You're certainly right about the south having traditionally been the most martial region of the country. Even today the south contributes a disproportionate share of recruits to the US military. While as I said, opposition to intervention in WWII was largely conservative-shaded, a snarl is that the south was the most vociferously pro-Allied and anti-Axis region of the country.
I think the geographical distribution of German-descended Americans does a lot to explain that.
The more conservative areas of the country are and have been the South and the Midwest, with the latter full of Germans and the former full of British Islanders. Southern conservatives were anxious to beat the Hun again, while Midwestern conservatives still had a lot of residual sympathy for the Fatherland.
I think it’s worth noting that German-Americans mostly spoke German at home until WWI and so in 1942 a lot of elders in German communities were still not very assimilated.
Not just the elders either. One of my parents’ next door neighbors was born in the mid-1930s; he didn’t speak a lick of English until he started the first grade. His family, neighbors, and fellow church members all spoke mostly German.
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