In One Chart, Here's Why The Anti-War Movement Collapsed

[another_liberal]

77. The President's decision certainly demoralized me.

I did support the President's election in 2008; I gave money to his campaign; I worked phone banks for hours at our local Democratic headquarters; I wore his campaign logo proudly and I stood for hours just for the chance to catch a glimpse of him and to hear his voice in person. When he defeated McCain/Palin that November, it seemed like I was living a genuine miracle. I really believed our country had been saved from the insanity of endless war.

I can still remember my disbelief, quickly followed by a sense of betrayal and culminating in a smoldering rage at his decision to add yet more American soldiers and more hundreds of billions of dollars to the mountain of wasted lives and fortune that has been our involvement in Afghanistan. I will always support Barack Obama as my President, and I did contribute to his reelection campaign in 2012, but I will never completely forgive him for that horrible mistake.

I was surely not alone in my disappointment. The impact his decision to emulate his predecessor in doubling-down on our involvement in a pointless war, I believe, was first seen in the lackluster turn-out of Democratic voters that led to the loss Senator Kennedy's Senate seat to a Republican in early 2010. The same disenchantment on the part of anti-war Democrats can be seen in low turnouts for the the mid-term elections that fall.

There can be little doubt our President did himself and our country a great disservice when he sided with his generals instead of the people who elected him. I fear he is about to make an even worse mistake by intervening in Syria. I and many, many others have been trying to tell him so. May he still hear our voices, swallow his pride, and decide not to attack.