Seize the Jacksonian Day

“They should know we will follow them to the gates of hell.”

“The long-term challenge is debilitating and ultimately eradicating a strong and growing ISIS.”

“The president should have weaponized the moderate Syrian rebels earlier.”

“Thousands of Russian troops are here [in Ukraine] with tanks, missiles, heavy artillery, and are directly engaged in what is clearly an invasion. We should be providing the Ukrainians with the type of defensive weapons that will impose a cost upon Putin.”

These quotes come from, in order, Vice President Joe Biden, Republican Sen. Rand Paul, Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan, and Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez.  This isn’t the sort of talk one hears from people who are “weary of war.”  But neither are these politicians who are neocon war-hawks; these are centrist Democrats and Paul, of course, is a libertarian Republican who flirts with neo-isolationism.

What’s happened?

To The Atlantic’s Peter Beinart, the spectacular beheading of journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff has touched the honor culture of America’s “Jacksonians,” as Walter Russell Mead calls them, taking Andrew Jackson as the paradigm.  Beinart admits that “Obama has always had trouble with Jacksonians, who tend to live outside cities and be older white, and less educated than Obama’s political base.” ...