We were sort of fighting against slavery in the Civil War, in that lots of leaders in the Union were happy to compromise with slavery early on to preserve the Union, and it was really the radical Republicans seizing the opportunity the war provided to pass the 13, 14 & 15 amendments after the war.

April 09, 2026 - 15:03 UTC

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We were sort of fighting against fascism in WW2, in that a lot of Americans thought the Nazis made some really good points when the war started, and Nazism was inspired in no small part by the U.S., and it was really fighting the war that made America stridently anti-fascist.
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So it was sort of on all three accounts. In each conflict, we started in a more ambivalent, nuanced place, trying to avoid an ideological confrontation, but it was the course of the war itself that hardened that ideological resolve and made us see the war as a fight for something bigger.
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