Again, the sinkings had been occurring for over a year and the US still didn't want a DoW on Germany.
Sure! This is based on the rather naive idea that sinking three ships or thirty is the same, and that there isn't a straw-camel-back effect, and also that the Pearl Harbor attack doesn't raise the overall level of bellicosity of the US population.
Again the sinkings and deaths had been going on for over a year and the US papers had not run with it. Don't you think said 'tribunal of newspapers' would have already indulged in yellow journalism and whipped up public outcry by now?
And what happened at Pearl doesn't change the newspapers' outlook, either. And the White House's encouragement doesn't, either. Sure?
Remember that this is a public jaded by newpapers and warmongers after WW1. The public isn't willing to fight in Europe again.
Look, if your simplistic take on the US public opinion were true, then the German DoW wouldn't change it. How is a DoW worse than a few more sinkings without a DoW? The public and their elected representatives should have insisted that the Germans should just be ignored, that the USA are already at war with Japan, japan first, and so on.
It didn't happen, eh?
Then again, the Germans also began sinking merchant ships all along the US coast. But you claim that additional sinkings don't make the US public angry, don't you?
Right, ever stap short of war. You're misinterpreting what 'even if war is more likely' means; it means even if Germany declares war, not the US declares war. The US public wanted to aid the Allies materially, not by joining in on the war; instead they wanted to push their neutrality as far as it would go. If Germany declared war, then that is there problem, if not then the US gets to help while being neutral.
You are overlooking the fact that the increase of the percentage of those who wanted to help the British "even if this makes war more likely" shows an increase in the willingness to have a war, whatever side declares it. If the majority of the US public had wanted to stay out of an European war no matter what, that percentage would have never increased.
That's a big difference from wanting to declare war, because if they wanted that they had plenty of Casus Belli in 1941.
Yes - which did not come after a Pearl Harbor attack, though. Your basic mistake is the notion that Pearl Harbor only changed the US stance towards Japan. It changed the US stance towards the whole affair.
Sure, but see above. The US did not want to declare war, but if they provoked Hitler into declaring war the public was okay with that, because then THEY would be the 'innocent' party. The problem is that if the US public really wanted to declare war, they had plenty of reasons to enter the war prior when the Germans killed US servicemen and sailors throughout 1941. Instead FDR had to answer questions about why there was a US ship in a war zone.
Also the public was unaware of the extent to which the US was violating international law and putting US servicemen in harms way. If they die deep in a warzone, that could be politically damaging to FDR not Germany.
I admit that the reasoning stands, per se, but it is based on a rather complex analysis of the events. You yourself are aware that the general public lacked many details. The analysis would be rather more fundamental and raw than this.
Also a bit of family history: my grandmother's brother was in the coast guard and was part of the delivery of war goods to Allied harbors in 1940-1. He kept a journal of his travels and his mother had them published in 1941 in the local newspaper before US entered the war. The Navy had him arrested and thrown in jail and his family was investigated by the FBI. Eventually he was released because he didn't authorize the publication of the diaries and my great-grandmother had no idea that they contained 'national secrets'. The point is the Roosevelt administration didn't want the public to know that the US was involved in shipping these goods in warzones directly to the Allies against the will, at that time, of the public.
Interesting story, but it tells us something about yourself and your take on the issue, too.
So further sinkings as a result of willfully pressing deep into warzones against the will of the public is not going to provoke as strong a reaction as you seem to think, at leas not against Germany.
Same objections as above. The US public would largely consider the sinkings as taking place in a "US defense zone", and Pearl Harbor changed things.
Some of the other things you write below still are about the same points and get the same answers.
Proof for this? I've never read this.
The impressive thing about this thread is that I quoted extensively a speech given by Roosevelt, but nobody of the contributors to the thread seems to have read it.
While the fact that the US President says something is no evidence that the majority of the US public believes him, at least those who voted for him and support him are likely to - which means a majority. Add those who feel willing to go along with their head of state simply because a war is on and that makes them feel more patriotic.
President Roosevelt said:
I repeat that the United States can accept no result save victory, final and complete. Not only must the shame of Japanese treachery be wiped out, but the sources of international brutality, wherever they exist, must be absolutely and finally broken.
"wherever they exist" = in Europe = in Germany and Italy.
President Roosevelt said:
Your Government knows that for weeks Germany has been telling Japan that if Japan did not attack the United States, Japan would not share in dividing the spoils with Germany when peace came. She was promised by Germany that if she came in she would receive the complete and perpetual control of the whole of the Pacific area-and that means not only the Far East, not only all of the islands in the Pacific, but also a stranglehold on the west coast of North, Central, and South America.
We also know that Germany and Japan are conducting their military and naval operations in accordance with a joint plan, That plan considers all peoples and nations which are not helping the Axis powers as common enemies of each and every one of the Axis powers.
That is their simple and obvious grand strategy. That is why the American people must realize that it can be matched only with similar grand strategy. We must realize for example that Japanese successes against the United States in the Pacific are helpful to German operations in Libya; that any German success against the Caucasus is inevitably an assistance to Japan in her operations against the Dutch East Indies; that a German attack against Algiers or Morocco opens the way to a German attack against South America.
(...)
Remember always that Germany and Italy, regardless of any formal declaration of war, consider themselves at war with the United States at this moment just as much as they consider themselves at war with Britain and Russia.
Then there are newspapers reports mentioning German planes at Pearl Harbor.
The Japanese had their own problems with the US and that was widely known. The embargo against Japan wasn't exactly obscure news, nor was the increasing Japanese hostility to the US over said embargo, nor the Japanese war in China that the US heavily opposed.
Again, quite accurate - and not the way the average US citizen would see it.
Yeah, get it over with against Japan. A war the US declares against Germany makes the war last longer and is unnecessary so long as Germany doesn't declare war. Let the Reds and Brits fight the Nazis, we've got the Japanese!
This boils down to being your opinion, sorry.
Note BTW that by taking this stance, you have the British doing more than the USA, as they are at war not just with Germany but with the Japanese too. The USA are in the same position as the USSR, at war with one of the enemies but not with the other, however the USSR has the enemy into its own territory, unlike the USA. I think many Americans wouldn't feel proud of such a position.
The rest is getting repetitive. Sure the Germans had good reasons to sink ships in those convoys and warships that cooperated with British warships in keeping the U-Boote at bay. This isn't the way the US public is going to see the issue, however. If nothing else, out of good old nationalism.