Are we going to war?

[Dill]

(07-18-2023, 09:43 AM)Nately120 Wrote: Additionally, the military is trying to recruit younger people, but politicians treat it as a literal facet of the republican party which markets itself towards mostly older white people.

Younger generations are more diverse and liberal, yet the political party associated with the army is speaking to and marketing itself towards retired white people. The Bush Kerry election was where I noticed the military become a Republican thing.  A democrat with 4 purple hearts was seen as being anti military or weak because the R was more important than the resume. 

Perception isn't everything, but I can see why the job path Trump and his supporters want you to take doesn't instantly appeal to gen z any more than going to a woke liberal arts college appeals to  conservative youth. Lines have been drawn yet again.

10 years ago or so Army commercials seemed oriented towards mechanically inclined and outdoorsy types. "Be an Army of one" and jumping out of helicopters before breakfast. Marines still have "we run towards danger" commercials. (Pretty sure Kyle Rittenhouse watched some of those.)

I think they are addressing the kind of person most likely to succeed in those branches. Military service, ground pounding at least, is seriously not meant for everyone.  

We have a relatively small military for the size of our population. 18 year olds today have rather different stance towards authority and country than they did in 1941 or 1950. Probably a lot of that can be explained by the effects of depression and world war on values and opportunities, as opposed to effects of television, the I-phone and social media and no serious existential threat to the nation. I think it better to compare generations in terms of the social forces conditioning their values and choices rather than treating them as an aggregate of unique individuals who just made a personal choice to be "tough and hard working" or "soft and lazy." Give my parents 18 years of television and no farm chores and they'd have been just as soft as I.