(June 26, 2018 at 2:39 am)Minimalist Wrote: Absolutely right. FDR asked for sacrifices of American civilians that Hitler would not dare to do. Bad memories of the post-WWI food riots, I guess?
I often wonder what would have happened if Hitler had not declared war on the US. On Dec. 8 the country was unified in its hatred of Japan and the desire for revenge and most people didn't give a flying fuck about Germany. FDR did not even make an attempt to get congress to declare war on Germany when he addressed congress. I imagine at some point an incident would have been manufactured but its hard to imagine what that would have been. I asked my dad about it one time and he said that every one he knew after Pearl Harbor wanted to kill Japs. He ended up in North Africa and Italy so he didn't get his wish.
An overwhelming majority of Americans polled said that we would have to fight Germany "sooner or later." There was positive sentiment for arming US merchantmen to resist German attacks. The people knew Germany was the primary danger. The Japanese had been fighting China for ~four years and still hadn't won that war. The sinking of Reuben James was simply the last pre-war incident. There would have been more given FDR's "short of war" policy.
FDR was always willing to stay behind the public opinion curve, I think he felt it gave him a better chance to get anything he wanted approved by Congress.
People talk about the isolationists, but the premier group, the coalition called "The Committee to Defend America First" never got a bill through Congress and never blocked a bill they didn't like. Their rolls had <800,000 names when they closed their doors on Dec. 8th, 194.
