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In the case of Vietnam though the United States was against an internationally supervised democratic election because the sentiment was that in a democratic election, the US backed candidate would lose to Ho Chi Minh in the north. We should tell the world the truth, we support democracy when the candidates we deem "worthy" have a chance of winning.
We condemn countries like Cuba when countries like Saudi Arabia are much worse.
With the caveat that liberals were the biggest war hawks back in those days. The GOP wanted to stay out of WW2 completely. You have to fast forward all the way to Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan before you see those roles reverse even slightly. The Dems today talk a good anti-war game, but in practice they're only slightly less hawkish than the GOP. On the other hand, FDR wanted to dive right into WW2 the first chance he got, so quite a bit more hawkish/interventionist than today's Democrats.
With the caveat that liberals were the biggest war hawks back in those days. The GOP wanted to stay out of WW2 completely. You have to fast forward all the way to Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan before you see those roles reverse even slightly. The Dems today talk a good anti-war game, but in practice they're only slightly less hawkish than the GOP. On the other hand, FDR wanted to dive right into WW2 the first chance he got, so quite a bit more hawkish/interventionist than today's Democrats.
So "Imagine if liberals had run American in WW2" is merely a matter of reading history.
The guy that pushed us through to a win in WW-II was a liberal and, in case you don't remember (or, sadly, never knew) he got us through the depression. The sad state of the educational system, as exemplified by the original question, can be blamed on right-wingers.
In the case of Vietnam though the United States was against an internationally supervised democratic election because the sentiment was that in a democratic election, the US backed candidate would lose to Ho Chi Minh in the north. We should tell the world the truth, we support democracy when the candidates we deem "worthy" have a chance of winning.
We condemn countries like Cuba when countries like Saudi Arabia are much worse.
I'm not sure that Americans fully embrace the concept of democracy, because sometimes democracy gives America headaches. Democracy is sometimes a bit messy.
In the case of Vietnam though the United States was against an internationally supervised democratic election because the sentiment was that in a democratic election, the US backed candidate would lose to Ho Chi Minh in the north. We should tell the world the truth, we support democracy when the candidates we deem "worthy" have a chance of winning.
We condemn countries like Cuba when countries like Saudi Arabia are much worse.
I agree that in general elections and the will of the people are a good thing. I supported them in Iraq and they were a dismal failure. The truth is that you need a civil society and an informed electorate first. Elections don't help much if the voters are going to be told how to vote by village, religious or tribal elders. Vietnam's elections would have been heavily manipulated.
Also the U.S. had a vital interest in preventing the Pacific from becoming a Communist lake.
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Originally Posted by residinghere2007
Odd thread. FDR was president when WW2 started. He was a liberal. Truman was his VP. Truman was a liberal....
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Originally Posted by godofthunder9010
With the caveat that liberals were the biggest war hawks back in those days. The GOP wanted to stay out of WW2 completely. *****On the other hand, FDR wanted to dive right into WW2 the first chance he got, so quite a bit more hawkish/interventionist than today's Democrats.
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Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk
So "Imagine if liberals had run American in WW2" is merely a matter of reading history. Which makes the OP a dumb post.
The reason that in WW II it was the "liberals" that were pro-war was that the adversaries, Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo were properly identified as fascists. The Spanish Civil War ironically cast the die that the right wing in the U.S. lined up with Falangist or Fascist types and the liberals with socialists or communists. The U.S. and U.K. were almost alone in not having politics take to the streets along these lines. Pre-Hitler Germany, inter-war France and other countries played their political discourse out on the streets as well as the voting booth.
That being said that while Roosevelt has a lot of blood on his hands (more on that below) the U.S. has historical and more or less unbreakable ties to English-speaking countries U.K. and Australia. We had little choice but to find a way to get ourselves into WW II when those countries were in jeopardy. The fall of France, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore created that exigency.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SunGrins
The guy that pushed us through to a win in WW-II was a liberal and, in case you don't remember (or, sadly, never knew) he got us through the depression. The sad state of the educational system, as exemplified by the original question, can be blamed on right-wingers.
Roosevelt was more a patrician than a true liberal. His disdain for Jews was shown when he and Prime Minister King of Canada joined in excluding Jews from rescue. He could have used his power to bring in at least the maximum permitted by immigration quotas and leaned upon the U.K. to open up Palestine to unlimited Jewish immigration. He bears a lot of the responsibility for the Shoah.
Roosevelt was more a patrician than a true liberal. His disdain for Jews was shown when he and Prime Minister King of Canada joined in excluding Jews from rescue. He could have used his power to bring in at least the maximum permitted by immigration quotas and leaned upon the U.K. to open up Palestine to unlimited Jewish immigration. He bears a lot of the responsibility for the Shoah.
Just a side note - overt anti-semitism was rife in the US at the time. While the ultimate decision to not help jewish refugees does indeed rest with FDR, it is doubtful that any other (hypothetical) president would have acted differently. (Although FDR might have done more had he felt the political support was there - FDR Pushed for the Rescue of Jewish Refugees, Newly Revealed Documents Show | HistoryNet )
Unless that president was Eleanor Roosevelt...she might have had the backbone to do in public what she is known to have done behind the scenes -
"Eleanor successfully secured political refugee status for eighty-three Jewish refugees from the S.S. Quanza in August 1940, but was refused on many other occasions.[120] Her son James later wrote that "her deepest regret at the end of her life" was that she had not forced Franklin to accept more refugees from Nazism during the war.[121]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Roosevelt
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