War good. Trump bad.
Every book or long form podcast contains at least one gem of information, new perspective, or piece of context that shines new light on an old topic. I was listening to Daryl Cooper on Joe Rogan. Daryl said, amongst many other insightful things, the reason that the youth so adamantly opposed the Vietnam war and protested against it, was because the war had the potential to directly impact their lives should they be drafted.
It was not simply a battle of ideology.
I heard that and a light bulb went off. The anti-war protests were not about saving Vietnamese lives. A group of people who in a far away land who most people had never even interacted with before in their life. It was about saving their own lives. Perhaps there was an anti-war undertone, but it was not the main motivation.
Suddenly a number of things made sense to me. Like why the U.S. government has been increasingly using military “contractors” in wars and foreign occupations. Why the military prefers unmanned drone strikes over ground invasions. It’s not because they are concerned with the loss of life, saving American soldiers. They’ve learned that when American’s are faced with the possibility of having to fight their unjust wars, it leads to unrest and protests.
Why more people aren’t outraged by the two war’s we’ve been funding over the past two years. We’re not directly impacted. Or at least we think we’re not, because we’re told we’re not.
There’s been an interesting parallel going on ever since Donald Trump’s inauguration, and the implementation of his drastic policy changes. In two months I’ve heard more complaints about Donald Trump and his policies than I heard in all four years of Biden’s presidency. This is despite the fact that under Biden’s leadership two wars broke that continue to threaten the safety and security of all those involved, and millions of people around the world as each conflict escalates.
Between Ukraine and Gaza it’s likely that at least a million people have perished. Millions more Ukrainians and Gazans have been displaced. Over $200 billion of U.S. tax payer money has been sent overseas to aid in the devastation. And yet over the course of 4 years I never once heard any unsolicited complaints about Joe Biden and his leadership. Not once.
But now I hear it about Donald Trump regularly. The cashier at the grocery store. People I volunteer with. Friends I grew up with. And everyone in between.
There’s two reasons for this. One, coverage in the media. Two, how media frames all of Trump’s policy changes. Every move he makes is covered relentlessly, and every move he makes is positioned as a threat to Americans. Tariffs. DOGE. The Department of Education. And some of it might be, although I have my doubts.
But contrast that to how the war in Ukraine and conflict in Gaza are being covered. In Ukraine we are funding a necessary war to fend off the evil Russian Empire and Vladimir Putin. In Gaza we are continuing to fight the war on terror. If we don’t fight these wars, then our freedoms, sovereignty, and safety will be in jeopardy!
Increasingly people don’t know what they believe. They are told what to believe, adopt it as their own and regurgitate it. But one thing is true. People are selfish. They care about what affects them and what’s good for them. And so as long as the media continues to tug at this string, the people will continue to support war and fear Trump.
Crazy.