Wilkie was a Hoosier, and today we’d lambast him as a RINO. On some issues he was about as far left as FDR. Kind of a replay of today; no real conservatives around. Your comparison of Wilkie to Romney is fairly accurate. No way the slimes endorses Romney in ‘12.
In 1940, despite FDR’s Depression-prolonging deficits, the United States still had enough wealth and manufacturing capacity to finance and produce material to win a global war. Today, with the massive debt we’ve already piling up with no end in sight, and with little or no manufacturing base, I doubt we could do the same.
Food for thought.
Agreed.
We could not have done the same in 1933 or 1936. Roosevelt's pre-war buildup didn't really begin until things worsened in Europe in 1938. So the US had three years to prepare before Pearl Harbor, and it was more than a year after that before Americans were ready for major military operations.
Today in a sense, we are more like America of 1933 than of 1941. But there are some important differences.
On the good side, the US military today is vastly better equipped, trained and lead than it could even imagine at any other time historically.
On the down side, it's hard to imagine the US economy sustaining the kind of effort over a period of years required by the Second World War.
Fortunately, we may never again need to, for any number of profound reasons, including nuclear deterrence, improved communications, transportation, cultural factors, and possibly most important, critical American and allied forces forward deployed in or near the most likely trouble spots.
If we take on the little Hitlers while they are still small, they don't get the chance to grow up into really big bad boys.