Democrats have become the party of war. Americans are tired of it (WTF? Guardian?)

[Coventina]

The most devastating appraisal of the 2024 Democratic national convention was delivered by the neoconservative doyen Bill Kristol: “Leon Panetta quoting Ronald Reagan! My kind of Democratic convention.” He meant it as praise.

Earlier in the day, rumors had been flying around Chicago about that evening’s possible surprise speakers. Who would it be? Beyoncé? Taylor Swift? Close! It turned out to be the 86-year-old former CIA director and secretary of defense who last served in government over a decade ago. In his speech, he cited Ronald Reagan to rail against “isolationism”, telling the assembled crowd: “Our warriors need a tough, cool-headed commander-in-chief to defend our democracy from tyrants and terrorists,” and declaring that Kamala Harris would be that leader.

Trotting out an ageing national security mandarin to reminisce about the “war on terror” was both tone deaf, and, like the Harris campaign in general, seemed like a huge misread of what voters wanted from prospective commanders-in-chief in 2024.

As I watched Panetta walk out on to the stage, I was reminded of the 2016 Democratic convention, where Gen John Allen, who had headed US efforts in Afghanistan and later against Isis, was the featured national security validator. Apparently under orders to terrify everyone, Allen delivered a blistering speech about the US as the “indispensable and transformational power in the world” and assured the crowd that Hillary Clinton would use that power to defeat “the forces of chaos and darkness”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/jan/09/democrats-war-foreign-policy

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Articles like this is why I never give the Guardian money.

[Voltaire2]

1. Hopefully the Harris campaign was the last stand for the 'suburban republican moderate' strategy.

It doesn't work anymore. It demotivates our base of support. It gives our party the appearance of having no core values.

[Mountainguy]

8. Well the article is BS

And if a base needs to be motivated then they aren't really a base.

We aren't going to win elections while driving away moderates, suburbs, rural, etc.

Being a party of young urban liberals is a quick path to going extinct.

[Bettie]

12. So, be Republican Lite....

and lose every election?

Cater 100% to white dude bros who are afraid of women and non-white people?

Is that the best option?

[JI7]

13. Nobody is being Republican Lite. But the far left trash that is closer to MAGA

than to democrsts would like to erase our actual candidate and what her history and record is and what she campaigned on .

Fuck all of these phonies.

[Mountainguy]

14. I think we should be Democrats

But the coalition as it stands is not able to win and it's shrinking. Being openly hostile to the biggest block of voters in those swing states is a pretty bad idea.

BTW, we are losing support of non-whites too.

[Bettie]

15. Oh, I've been told, over and over

"the only way to win is to forget identity politics and talk about things that resonate with white, rural, christian men...the others will somehow know that Democrats will do things for others, we just can't talk about it..." in various permutations.

[mcar]

17. Our base is Black women

[Self Esteem]

27. Black women made up 7% of the voting electorate.

You can't win with just Black women alone.

[WarGamer]

19. DU POST OF THE DAY

[hlthe2b]

2. Well, Matt Duss is an idiot, for sure. I have not found this typical or even common on the Guardian.

and more to the point, being private foundation-funded, they may be one of the few who do not immediately bend the knee to TSF/MAGA dictatorial demands.

[mr715]

3. ...Liz Cheney...

is part of out coalition

[Seeking Serenity]

21. Damn. That's cold blooded

[BannonsLiver]

4. Easily some of the dumbest shit I've read in a publication that is awash with dumb shit.

And when I hear this line of attack I immediately smell a Putinite.

Oh, and fuck Matt Duss.

[RainCaster]

5. A piece of Pure BS, not at all like Guardian to publish this

I've been paying for Guardian feeds for years, and I will continue to do so. It's obviously NOT their message, but they are willing to publish it anyhow. I suppose the author had some credentials since he worked for Bernie, but I'm having my doubts about his bona fides now.

[LonePirate]

6. Trump is threatening to use military force to take Greenland and the Panama Canal but Dems are the war party? GTFO!

[JI7]

7. So people know details of policy and every person that supports Democrats

Last edited Thu Jan 9, 2025, 10:41 PM - Edit history (1)

and are able to bring up policies from decades ago.

But they are clueless when it comes to Republicans.

This is the far left pushing their bs as usual. Ignore what candidates actually say and stand for. We are supposed to believe people just couldn't vote for Harris becsuse of what Republicans did over 2 decades ago. But they are clueless when it comes to what Trump is doing now.

The fact Biden ended the war in Afghanistan is ignored. And how it's been used to attack Biden by the right wing.

[ismnotwasm]

9. Yup

So annoying.

[betsuni]

11. Absolutely. How so few can see this and are so easily fooled, I do not know.

[betsuni]

10. It isn't new, was left-populist constant bashing of Hillary as warmonger/war hawk/more dangerous than Trump.

Nobody remembers this? Democrats are the REAL warmongers is a classic attack. Obama drones drones drones will start WWIII at any second? Republicans just change these attacks a little when they need it.

[Blue_Tires]

20. Oh, I remember all those fake-assed anti-drone activists from 2016

And how they all mysteriously disappeared from the face of the Earth after Donnie got sworn in despite the fact that Donnie ordered more drone strikes in 4 years than Bush and Obama had combined in 16 years...

And DUers snap back at me for bringing it up, but it hasn't escaped my notice that right after the election, 70-80% of the "FREE GAZA" crowd (and 100% of the loudest and most vocal members) went silent on Twitter.

[Blue_Tires]

16. I don't know who Matt Duss is

But he's obviously trolling... Probably also thinks Donnie is a "peace" candidate.

[FakeNoose]

22. He's a Bernie Bro

Well he WAS a Bernie Bro, but now he sounds more like a MAGA troll.

[Blue_Tires]

24. It's called the "horseshoe left" for a reason...

[WarGamer]

18. Don't be so quick to dismiss this story...

[BannonsLiver]

23. lol

So you agree with Duss. Democrats are a war mongering party. Who would have thunk it!

[WarGamer]

29. Are Democrats war mongers?

No.

Has the Democratic Party been INFLUENCED IN RECENT YEARS BY NEOCON WAR MONGERS?

Certainly.

[Blue_Tires]

25. It's agitprop...

[Think. Again.]

26. I think you may have taken a portion of the article out of context...

Here is more of the same article, including the original sub-heading:

In defending the militarist status quo, Democrats ceded the anti-war lane to Republicans. As they enter the political wilderness, it’s time to reckon with what they got so wrong


-snip-

It’s a cliche that Americans don’t vote on foreign policy issues. However, according to public opinion surveys by Chris Shell, a fellow with the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, foreign policy played a relatively prominent role in the 2024 election – the climate crisis and immigration registered at the top of voters’ foreign policy concerns, followed by the war in Gaza, the Russia-Ukraine war and US-China relations. Among undecided voters in the weeks leading up to the election, Harris scored higher than Trump on only one of those issues (the climate crisis).

However disingenuous, especially given his aggressive support for rightwing forces in Israel, Trump’s vows to end the two wars dominating headlines were part of a winning message. According to the New York Times: “The Trump campaign’s research found that up-for-grabs voters were about six times as likely as other battleground-state voters to be motivated by their views of Israel’s war in Gaza.” Trump made a play for these voters, promising to seek peace and attacking Democrats for campaigning with the “radical war hawk” Liz Cheney. Just as he did in 2016 when he criticized Hillary Clinton as “trigger happy”, he managed to get to the Democrats’ left on foreign policy.

Democrats have no excuse for being surprised by this. Americans have voted for the less interventionist candidate of the two major parties in every presidential election since the end of the cold war (in the one exception, the post-9/11 election of 2004, John “reporting for duty” Kerry didn’t offer much of an alternative). George W Bush himself originally campaigned in 2000 on a “humbler” foreign policy.

Barack Obama ran and won by opposing not just the Iraq war, but warmongering itself. His memorable line in a January 2008 primary debate – “I don’t want to just end the war. I want to end the mindset that got us into war in the first place” – wasn’t just a critique of a policy, but of the entire militarist, interventionist foreign policy priesthood, which would later be termed “the Blob” by Obama’s speechwriter and adviser Ben Rhodes.

-snip-

We on DU know very well that there is a strong dislike of rightwing netanyahu's massacres in gaza.

[Self Esteem]

28. What war did Biden start or expand while president?

He all but ended the US drone program, a program Trump used to murder thousands.. He withdrew from Afghanistan and was the first president since Clinton to end his presidency with so few actual combat boots on the ground.

How is the pro-war?