The only way that I have been able to make sense of a major undercurrent always present in our political process is to accept the fact that humanity likes war. It just does.
I know no one will admit to this about themselves. I can already hear the solemn tones, "War is a terrible thing and no one really likes it," etc. etc.
But the fact is, the majority of people, or at best a minority so large that it is only a razor’s cut away from being a majority, like war. And they are always looking for an excuse to get into one. This is a startling awareness for me, as it would be for anyone who is consciously anti-war. How can people really, deep in their gut, like war?
But once you accept the hard raw fact that many people really do like war, you understand a major reason why people vote the way they do and why politicians run the way they run.
War enjoyment has always been a major part of our species mental nature.
There is a wide swath of human history dominated by people who believe that war is good for nations, for people, for civilizations. I read a new history of pre-world war II Germany a while back and was surprised to learn that one of the ways the Kaiser wanted to buck up the German people from their WWI humiliation was to get them back into war mode asap. He, along with Hitler, believed that the way to make a people strong was to create a perpetual war state. War is seen as the best of vehicles for self-improvement. War as the best path to self-improvement? Yes, many believe that a good nation filled with good people is best achieved by the warring nation. Right-wing radio regularly (even if subconsciously) echoes this point of view.
The city-state Sparta of ancient Greece is still widely admired because of the extremes to which it took the purpose of life to be war. The male elite of that society existed for war. They practiced war daily for their entire lives. And their happiest, most celebratory moments were when they got to engage in a real war.
Of the current candidates in our Presidential run, Barack is disparaged simply because he might talk to someone before he dropped bombs on them. It never occurred to me that this could be viewed as a position rife with naiveté and unseemly weakness. But that was before I understood that people really like war. The question Barack’s diplomacy poses for many is, Why talk to someone when you might have an excellent excuse to go to war with them instead? People fear a Barack Presidency because he might not take advantage of some good opportunities to go to war.
Hillary made good hay against Barack by indicating that she’d be far more inclined than him to give other leaders a war-threatening cold shoulder, the suggestion of mass-obliteration, and even possibly follow through with a real, thrilling war. I could not see how that would be a winning position. But that was before I understood that people really do like war. Being for war is a winning position.
McCain is nothing but a pro-war candidate. It's not that he is good at war. He’s just for it. Period. And that's more than enough for many.
A candidate my be eminent in every other category of desired competence, but if he forgets to be pro-war, his candidacy will be seen as a joke by some, and fill others with deep concern. A candidate not blatantly pro-war is thought to have something darkly sinister inhabiting his core that needs to be worried about. The only way I could understand that perplexing situation was to accept, people like war. They're for it. They want it. They like it. They just do. That explains why anti-war candidates just can't ever get any real traction with "the people."
People don't want a President who is not going to help them sate their war lust. People want a President who is vigilantly on the ready to get into war, conspicuously itching for the opportunity, and who will manage to get into at least a war or two, even if only skirmishes, before his term is served out. A President who does not manage at least that, no matter what else he accomplished, is derided as a failure.
People want a President who at the whiff of even a possible provocation will respond with massive retaliation, ridiculously pulverizing the people on the other side of the combat in the process. Such barbarity doesn’t make sense until you realize, that regardless of what people say, at heart, they like war.
Accept that cold hard fact about humanity, and you will understand more about our species than you might have wanted to know.