Why is non-interventionism and anti-war sentiment so fringe across the political spectrum? It’s basically only widespread among the far-left and libertarian right.
The far-right and some MAGA folks are “against” interventionism in the Middle East, but they shrug off Trump bombing Iran or Venezuelans. The entire MAGA crowd supported the Iran strikes. Only the far-left and lib-right were against all of these.
This strikes me as odd because non-interventionism is one of the most common-sense policies to have.
To make a long story short it's due to the merging of the US gov, MIC with silicon valley, the atrophication of its other industrial sectors, and the predomination these and other monopolies have over the American economic and thus political system.
There are certainly plenty of other factors into why anti-interventionism is so "fringe" but if you had to identify the most important one I'd probably say that it's because the US can't survive without it at this point. Its soft power has eroded and the ultimate effect of decades of its schizophrenic economic policies is that it can't compete with China in terms of actual productive capacity, nor is it the only game in town when it comes to offering other countries incentives for cooperation. Now if a developing country needs economic development aid, Chins has the capital and expertise to offer it and the flexibility and reputation to make it an attractive partner even if things don't work out as intended.
To give an example, after the war in Ukraine started Europe was cut off from the cheap Russian fuel that its economy relied on. US pledged to replace it, but shipping gas from the US via ships is much more expensive than the huge NS 1&2 pipelines. There is no non interventionist solution to the problem of Russian gas from the American perspective because it can't lower the cost of its own production beneath that of Russia's. Its labor costs are higher, the sort of production its doing is greater, and the logistics are more costly. Russia is also unlikely to be amenable to the US's needs because doing so is contradictory to their own interests. For the US, allowing the situation to continue unimpeded means the Russian position in Europe strengthening while the Americans' weakens, which is utterly unacceptable to Washington and its EU satraps.
We're seeing the results of this play out not only in Europe but also in the Americas, particularly with this most recent attack against Venezuela. The inability to overcome Russia in Ukraine, even with the help of Nato, is forcing the US to reorient to its home continent and its "backyard." This is to try and rebuild its economic strength using the massive military it still has leftover from the cold war, which at this point is the strongest suite it has left to play.
USAnos deep down understand the sort of ordeal that radical change means. Their founding myths reinforce this, as well as the exceptional nature of the great men central to them. Nobody wants to be , or thinks to be those kind of people. AKA nationalism.
So when the propaganda explains every internal crisis and every foreign action of their imperialist shithole as necessary to "maintain their way of life", they quietly acquiesce, look away, hold their noses and look for the accustomed modes of self absolution that so reliably are provided to them, some time later.Or more commonly, join in the blood-lust because the circus is quickly becoming their only access to bread. The absolution will find them either way.
They know that war will never again come to them, or hope. And even if it does, even if the draft is resumed, it would take hundreds of thousands of dead yankees before they turned their struggle inwards. This time around they have everything to lose. And they will fight accordingly.