At the time the prevalent belief initially was that the mighty British empire, together with the French, would beat back the Germans and Italians. Remember that these countries had fought a destructive war already which an at the time more powerful German empire lost. US sentiment also was against direct involvement in the war, and many in cabinet were more concerned with the rising threat to their west: Japan.
That’s not to say the US did nothing. The US supplied China via the Burma road agains the Japanese, supplied the Allies with arms and they also did the destroyers-for-bases deal. The US also held their first peacetime draft in 1940, well before it officially entered the war.
At the time, the belief was that the US would have to defend the west (against Japan) and that the UK could defeat the Germans. It’s why the US moves the fleet to Hawaii, to hopefully pressure the Japanese into backing down.
The US had both domestic and geopolitical reasons to not declare war immediately. It’s fair to criticize that, but to characterize the US as doing nothing in that time is just a falsification of history.
LilB0kChoy@midwest.social 1 week ago
I didn’t think you could.
MapleEngineer@lemmy.world 1 week ago
829 days. Canada was there for 820 of those 829 days.
MapleEngineer@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I’ve been around long enough that I recognize bad faith and fallacious arguments, pedantism, and particularly expressions of Danth’s Law and choose not to take the bait. I stay on message which was that it was obvious to the UK who their true and trustworthy friends were (for example Canada which joined the Second World War 9 days after its outbreak and sent young men to fight to stop the spread of fascism and defend Britain) and weren’t (for example the US which sat on its hands for 829 days while Europe burned) at it should be today. It should be horrifying (but not at all surprising) to the UK, and to the rest of the free world, to see that fascism has taken hold in the US.