Ares has himself an elephant.
Pragmatically, republicans rally for war because it makes the United States a lot of money. Beyond that catalytic motivation, the Republican Party believes that chanting war makes them appear strong and serious to their voter base who misremember the Alamo on a daily basis.
In short, being a pro-war republican helps a conservative politician keep their job and their bank account(s).
Psychologically (being inside the mind of the average Washington politician can be a terrifying place), “to war” is to shout “FREEDOM!!” with a manly yawp while wielding the biggest gun you can get your hands on so that you look cool. In American politics, wanting war gives power to the power hungry who got beat up after gym class. The republican want for war is revenge for the once physically weak – a politician advocating war is the geek pulling the strings of the bully. No wonder Mitch McConnell is smiling.
For the broader political party, war is the extreme right wing of the GOP: a gun, a cause, a flag, and a rallying cry. In certain ranks of republican politicians, war is leadership.
Thirst for war is in the DNA of the GOP. It sparks the same power of emotion the right wing feels when they think of “Obama” – war cries are the perfect way to rally the base while also boosting the economy.
While the emotion that war creates in people is vital to hold the GOP base together, the foundation for republicans desiring war is monetary gain. That’s why a lot of politicians tend to promote it whenever possible. Anything monetary is viewed in the short term. That requires successive wars. Successive wars are great for elections, great for industry, and great for grandstanding.
When GOP leaders say “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs” what they really mean is “War, War, War!” War creates jobs and absurdly huge contracts. It distracts the public and makes money for all involved. Nothing makes money for broad swaths of American industry more quickly than good and well orchestrated war.
Republicans like war because America’s financial strength was built on it.
War made America what it is today: a giant consumer-based economy with billions of dollars of discretionary money just itching to be spent by its middle class. A land of hundreds of millions in which the vast majority will do just about anything to “have a piece of the good life”.
Had it not been for the manufacturing boom of WWII, and the post-war unstoppable desire to settle down into a regular life so they could all forget the horrors of a world war – American attitudes and dominance might be very different.
The extraordinary home and luxury-centric spending of the Greatest Generation, and what that instilled into their booming babies, are what built the American economy as we know it today. Who created the power America enjoys? Captains of industry? Wall Street? Pshaw! It was the average America’s desire to forget and feel normal that drove the economic boom. The desire to forget and feel better about life always drives an economic boom. Modern countries need to keep their people on edge so that they continue to seek normalcy. If all is well… what motivation is there to buy anything?
We see that it war makes money not just when the war is active, but also if the country wins: the desperate activities to get back to normalcy can move billions of dollars in an economy. Seeking normalcy and comfort for Americans means buy something. Don’t feel happy? Buy this. Want to have sex with someone more attractive than you? Buy that. Want to feel safe? Buy all of these with automatic re-order! Products offsetting negative emotions is in American DNA. (One can see how maintaining negative emotions within large groups of people can be very lucrative, indeed.)
We can’t totally ignore the lobbyist impact on national politics. Republicans like war because it helps them keep their own jobs via the donor class as well: catering to those industries benefit from war and contribute to their campaigns. It’s a beautiful system.
Republican love war because being a war time politician gives the impression of being strong and capable of “making hard choices”.
Mental vs. physical strength is a constant battle within the GOP. Most of the republican base who vote in primary elections prefer the latter. To be fair, most Americans prefer the latter.
As American citizens living in a post Citizens United world, we must accept the fact that there is never a time when we are not in a congressional election season. The main reason nothing ever gets done in Washington is because Congress is always in election mode. Election mode means looking strong, grandstanding, and proving they can stand up against the opposition. Resistance is amazingly important when proving worthiness to the republican base.
Republicans proving their strength to voters by resisting and fighting against the opposition results in total blockage, no progress, and committee hearing after committee hearing designed to capture sound-bytes blaspheming the other side.
Americans still hold strong to the idea that strength is expressed by physical force. Advocating war is an ace for politicians to prove they have strength. Republicans, especially House Representatives from red districts, are pressured every day by their foaming-at-the-mouth base to prove they are strong like a coiled snake. (…Strong like the Alamo. Fractured like Babylon. Strong and fractured like the losing side of every stubborn, ill-informed, reaching for the heavens angry mob… but that’s neither here nor there…)
Republicans in Congress must be “strong” to win a primary election these days. The only way they can do that is show their desire for war. It’s the same as being anti-choice, and pro-assault rifle with high capacity magazines. In the eyes of their electorate those advocacies make a republican politician strong… and so politicians promote war. The need to appear physically strong in Republicanland is quite amazing. Intelligence? Not required. Thoughtfulness? A disadvantage. Empathy? A deal breaker. Dumb-Stubborn strength? A must.
Republicans want war because they think it will make President Obama look bad.
The only tie that binds the entire Republican Party is their hate for President Obama. Party leaders are forced to exploit that extraordinary amount of hate onto whoever else they can within the democratic ranks (Reid, Pelosi, Clinton, etc.). That’s all they have, really. There is no other universal belief in the voter ranks other than Hate Obama. The only choice for the GOP is to try and point it in different directions.
Given the Republican emotional platform is so monolithic, every action in one way or another has to have an Obama bashing headline. It defines the modern Republican Party. That Iraq is falling apart, that Syria is a nightmare, that Russia leadership is once again cold-war attitudes – knowing that the President does not want to go to war means that republicans must show their resistance to Obama by wanting war. It’s always opposite day in Washington.
Republicans in Congress have to want the opposite of Obama, and manipulate the position however they can to look strong. It’s just extra icing on the cake that war happens to make them so much money as well.
No wonder we hate politics.
