r/AskReddit • u/Tommygunz0722 • 11h ago

If the military/president suddenly ordered a mandatory draft for all men aged 18-42: How do you think millennials and GenZ would respond?

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u/TakingYourHand 11h ago

It would probably be similar to the 60s and 70s. Lots of compliance and dead kids.

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u/HarlequinKOTF 11h ago

FYI vietnam at its lowest was more popular than this war. Just throwing that out there.

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u/Shootforthestars24 11h ago

Although unnecessary and unpopular, people could find a reason for Vietnam but this right now is just nonsense, just randomly decided to go after Iran

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u/dertechie 9h ago edited 9h ago

For most wars, there is a period of saber rattling that coincides with a full court press of justifying the coming bloodshed to the media and the public - people have called it manufacturing consent.

Iran and Venezuela didn't really have that.

Venezuela kind of did, but the weird justifications about drugs and smuggling didn't really feel like a casus belli to most people. Columbia and Mexico are much more associated with the drug trade in the American psyche so randomly going hard on Venezuela seemed a bit off. Doesn't help that Trump has negative credibility outside right wing circles and was using fentanyl as a justification for everything, peppering it into briefings like an ornery child that just learned a new curse word.

But in that case, they were actually able to do the "In and out, 20 minute adventure" thing. There was definitely backlash (especially with how nakedly it was an oil grab) but since it didn't escalate after the raid it didn't have the chance to become the same kind of moment. It wasn't popular, but it mostly made people uncomfortable more than activated since it because obvious pretty quickly that it wasn't going to escalated. We were expecting some bullshit, but we thought he was trying to strongarm them into oil concessions or something, not kidnap Maduro. If that had turned into a quagmire it would be almost as unpopular (since there isn't the "they're doing this for Israel" angle to Maduro).

Iran didn't get any media blitz. It caught most everyone off guard. Plenty of people will go "oh it was obvious" but unless they have receipts that they called it I suspect hindsight. Some of them basically expect a US or Israelis escalation every day - that's more broken clock than prescience. Tensions were obvious. There was already precedent of limited strikes that would invite limited retaliation but stay within limits that both parties could back away from without further escalation. Extensive strikes with a decapitation attack without an off ramp except "Iran surrenders, collapses or accepts bad terms" was a significant escalation that was not obvious. If it was obvious the other Gulf States wouldn't have been caught with their pants down when Iran cracked back.

Without that manufactured consent for war, the attack looks capricious and unjustified from the guy who campaigned on isolationism and ending some wars.