Anti-war, or anti-Republican?

Professors at the University of Michigan and Indiana University evaluating surveys of more than 5,300 anti-war protestors from 2007 to 2009, discovered that the many protestors who self-identified as Democrats “withdrew from anti-war protests when the Democratic Party achieved electoral success” in the 2008 presidential election.

The withdrawal occurred even as Obama was escalating the war in Afghanistan and intensifying drone wars in places like Pakistan and Yemen. The researchers thus conclude that during the Bush years, many Democrats were not necessarily motivated to participate in the anti-war movement because they oppose militarism and war—they were instead “motivated to participate by anti-Republican sentiments.”

 Democratic Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton said a war resolution will pass simply “because of loyalty of Democrats” who “just don't want to see Obama shamed and humiliated on the national stage.”

 It suggests that the party affiliation of a particular president should determine whether or not we want that president to kill other human beings. It further suggests that we should all look at war not as a life-and-death issue, but instead as a sporting event in which we blindly root for a preferred political team.

The research also appears to confirm that it is the “leadership” that are the followers, “if the typical activist sees themself as radical, then the leadership will be more likely to be radical.” and leaders who wish to focus on other issues end up unheeded.

Adapted from here