Politics & Power Quote by Ashleigh Banfield

Banfield’s line lands like a warning wrapped in newsroom plainspokenness: the worry isn’t that Americans are war-weary, it’s that war still reads, on first glance, like an inspiring story. Her phrasing - “hesitant,” “again,” “courageous and terrific” - is doing double duty. On the surface she’s describing public mood. Underneath, she’s diagnosing a media-and-politics feedback loop where conflict gets packaged as moral clarity, national purpose, even spectacle.

The key word is “looked.” She’s not claiming war is courageous and terrific; she’s pointing to the way it can be made to appear that way. That’s an indictment of framing: the heroism narrative, the rally-round-the-flag energy, the clean arc of deployment, victory, homecoming. Journalists know how quickly “support the troops” can slide into “support the mission,” and how emotion can outpace scrutiny. Banfield’s comment suggests a public that, after one war, hasn’t necessarily learned skepticism - it may have learned familiarity.

Context matters: Banfield came up in the era when cable news turned foreign policy into live theater and patriotism into programming. In that environment, the appetite for “another” war isn’t only about geopolitics; it’s about the seduction of unity and the comfort of a narrative where America is unmistakably the protagonist. Her intent feels less like cynicism than alarm: if war is remembered as an “endeavor” rather than a catastrophe, the next sell becomes easier, faster, and more emotionally bulletproof.