this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2025
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Great points, this is what I was thinking too. I can see the old neocons salivating for war and getting behind Trump while the groyper isolationist brigade getting mad. Of course the dems are going to fuck this up and promise to bomb iran 10x harder in the midterms.
They're going to try to maneuver to the right of Trump. And then be mad at us when they manage to lose a gimme election in the midterms.
When I was very young in the '90s, the Democrats were the party that got us into war. Republicans were able to sit back, preach neutrality and isolationism. They could rightfully say that "we don't get involved in foreign quagmires, Korea and Vietnam were Democrat wars" while positioning themselves as a party of peace. Of course that was a lie, but it was a lie that resonated with a lot of people.
Starting in 2004, the Republicans became the party of war. They were the ones who got us into the most recent foreign quagmires. Democrats had an amazing opportunity to frame themselves as the party of peace, The party of no forever-wars. Something that they were somewhat successful in during the Obama years. Even though we know that it was a lie, it was a lie that resonated with people.
Watching the Democrats give up this amazing position, is like watching The Washington Generals lose a basketball game to a pack of stray dogs. It's infuriating. I don't expect the Democrats to do the right thing, I don't even expect them to do the smart thing, but if you can't run up the score in a situation like this what is the point of organizing yourself into a party?
Are you talking about them intervening in the Yugo civil war?
The only major direct confrontation the US was involved in in the 90’s was the Gulf War
In the '90s people were still talking about how Vietnam started off as the Democrat's war. Democrats also tended to be the party that talked about intervention, being the world's policeman.
H.W. and Reagan started plenty of conflicts but the average American saw no impact from these conflicts. They couldn't point to Granada on a map, and Desert Storm was just a fun show on CNN. These conflicts were quickly forgotten and through most of the 90s Republicans were able to position themselves as a party of peace. In 2000, George W Bush's campaign focused on limiting "foreign entanglements" and not acting as the world's police.
It's always been a lie from both parties, but even though it's a lie it's still the kind of message that wins elections.
I've been looking for sources that back me up and I'm starting to think that this impression I have, is less objectively true. I definitely remember in the lead up to the Iraq War, several people reminding me the Republicans had not gotten us into the quagmire of Vietnam or Korea, but rewatching the presidential debates of 2000, it's really hard to find a place where Bush and Gore actually differ on foreign policy.
Ah, yeah, good point.
I distinctly remember seeing a clip from those debates where Gore took a more interventionist position, but idk if I could find it. It's a real thing though, it's a big part of why Bush was all like, "This is not about nation-building" and stuff like that at the start.
To keep up the illusion of bourgeois political theater. The point is not to be a party with some sort of distinct principles or even to have power for your specific team but to put on a show, fight over meaningless things and adhere like the party to the wants of capital and empire at the end of the day. What's curious I guess to me is that they manage to not know this themselves yet somehow ensure it continues to come true, perhaps the top party organizers understand it well enough to sew chaos and lousy consultants and strategies throughout to guarantee this outcome. At least I feel since the Clinton era this has been the agenda they successfully pushed with the whole "third way" stuff which is really just adhering to empire and trying to outflank the Republicans. The days of any genuine division however small ended with the cold war when capital decided it didn't need to maintain real fighting and told their boxers the truth about these fights being fixed and their need to cooperate on that. Oh the fights on things like racism, culture war, welfare are real enough but these lines of empire are red lines no one may cross without being destroyed by the bourgeois press and isolated by the structure of government (loss of committee assignments, others refusing to work with that person on their bills, being targeted by their own party to be replaced next election).