It's been pointed out that the USA always seems to need an enemy.

[EarnestPutz]

We need to be fighting something. We've fought unions, facists, godless
communists, terrorists, Muslims and "illegal" aliens. I'd like to see a progressive,
Democratic candidate acknowledge this and suggest that we keep fighting as
always, but fight poor schools, low wages, wasteful spending, environmental
degradation, homelessness, poor health care, high drug prices, predatory lending,
corporate greed, income inequality, you name it, there's plenty to choose from.
People were willing, the last presidential election, to declare war on the federal government, see
it as their enemy. Our candidate needs to tell them who the real enemies are.

[RainCaster]

1. You have a great idea here

[EarnestPutz]

10. Thank you. nt

[mitch96]

2. "need an enemy."

How would the military industrial complex make their billions if we had no enemy??
m

[brush]

3. Sound idea. The common enemy we had for the election galvanized us...

and we were successful. Your ideas can also galvanize us to pull in the same direction and not against each other as we did in 2016.

[EarnestPutz]

4. Galvanizing "us" would be great. Galvanizing some...

...of those disillusioned folks on the other side to join us,
fight the real enemy, would be even better. Obama told us
to "keep hope alive", let's give more people some hope.

[malaise]

5. The problem is that war helped the USA get rich

so war s now seen as good for the economy.
Npte that as soon as the COld War suposedly ended, they went after the Muslims.

Remember the words of the scumbag in the WH. He remnded all that he has weapons to sell to the Saudis so it doesn't matter if the children in Yemen die.

[Downtown Hound]

6. Can't spend hundreds of billions a year on war with no enemy. n/t

[Timewas]

7. it is designed

To cause attention to outside problems taking the focus off of internal problems, pretty standard.

[Igel]

8. Except that with a volunteer army

most people don't really care.

The biggest enemy that we currently have is the big scary Russians. AQ? Not much, not for years.

It's not mostly (R) fighting that battle these days. There was Saddam, but that hardly had anything close to unanimity. ISIS? News junkies and a few percentage point actively followed it. The '90s were almost an enemy-free zone.

And I knew more people protesting the US' attitude than were actually concerned about the USSR in the '80s. It's like now. Russia ignores treaty, yawn; US decides to get upset, "WTF! Stop it with the warmongering, already."

No, most people focus on internal problems, which is to say, internal to their lives. Solipsistic, almost, if we can expand solipsism to be a bubble containing just a bit more than the self alone.

[c-rational]

9. We have a wartime economy, as I recall being taught in high school - how often we forget. This

is something that should be emphasized by democrats if we want to change our society to a more social one where we do not spend 5-6% of our GDP on the military. Germany spends about 1%. There college is free (you actually get a stipend), and people do not fear for healthcare. Beware the military industrial complex. Good post.