Of course there was politics going on during WW2—that wasn’t my point. My point was that the Voices of Reason at the time were calling anyone who wasn’t 100% for kicking Nazi butt an “America Firster” and a fascist or dictator-coddler. The mushy middle and the left weren’t wringing their hands saying, “Oh, we must compromise!” like they are now.
Before Pearl Harbor, polling on entering WWII ran 80:20 against. After Pearl Harbor, FDR tried to get the people who had agreed with their Congressman before PH that we shouldn't get in it, and agreed with that same Congressman after PH that we had to fight, to vote against their congressman because he hadn't been on FDR's side before PH. It didn't work.I had a card from my uncle who fought under Patton on the occasion of VE day, saying, "Your uncle is finished fighting. We licked the Jerries."I don't think he was the only one in the ETO who thought they were finished with war. Absent the A-bomb, the Army would have expected them to fight Japan - and I suspect there would have been mutiny if they tried to make them do it. I do know that my uncle said later, "If they want to get me to fight again, I know where I can go that they'll never find me."