If we look back at the history of the Democrats, or let's just take the origins of progressivism, where did Woodrow Wilson stand on the First World War? Looks like he was very much interested in joining the First World War on the side of Britain when the Lusitania was sunk in 1915 off the coast of Ireland. A ship carrying munitions to the British. It was sunk in 1916.
He runs on a platform of. He kept us out of war and in April of 1917 Woodrow Wilson declares war on Germany, conscripting another word for enslaving 2.8 million men into this European conflict, getting 116,000 men killed. I'm sure feminists are very up in arms that it was only one of the genders that was conscripted and forced to perform deadly
labor against their will. The origins of progressivism are very pro war because it's seen as a great mechanism to expand the scope and power of the state. Franklin Roosevelt obviously intended to get the US into the Second World War. There was a Secretary of War diary by Henry Stimson on November 25th of 1941 where he says the president predicted we could be attacked as soon as next Monday. The goal was to see how we could maneuver the Japanese into making the first move.
This was a long provocation that Roosevelt's administration had had with the Export Control Act of 1940, sanctioning Japan, putting U.S. troops in the Philippines and around the Japanese area. It's referred to as diversionary foreign policy. Where he he goes, Look, the New Deal that we gave people, we said it would end the Great Depression. It caused the double dip recession of 1937. Unemployment went back up. We need something to distract the population.
And so Franklin Roosevelt was constantly looking for something to distract us with. And a war with the Axis powers was something he happily got us involved in. Harry Truman, of course, the Democrat went to war in Korea. It was Democrats like Lyndon Johnson and Kennedy a little bit early on. Lyndon Johnson, of course, escalated things in Vietnam under the hopes of building a Tennessee Valley Authority in Vietnam and simply just helping those people. What's wrong with helping Matt?
That they're always trying to help us under the guise of violently dominating us. It turns out that the people who so commonly justify ruling people in this geographical area called America, once you give them a one or two basic arguments that hey, you could also violently dominate people in this geographical area, They're like, well, why would I stop expanding my reach? Why would I only help some
people and not all people? Of course, this help comes under the guise of imperialism where some people coercively impose their will on others. They're very skeptical of the voluntary market where you can't get a penny out of someone's pocket unless they voluntarily give it to you. They meet that with a high degree of skepticism.
But when it comes to governments who basically claim the right to tax your property at will, take 40% of your income, tax every single economic exchange you're involved in in the marketplace, well, that they don't have much skepticism towards at all. So the roots of progressivism are pro war.