Even anti-imperialist parliamentarians were coopted by believing expansion necessary for national survival.

Evidence

The only grandeur of imperialism lies in the nation’s losing battle against it. The tragedy of this half-hearted opposition was not that many national representatives could be bought by the new imperialist businessmen; worse than corruption was the fact that the incorruptible were convinced that imperialism was the only way to conduct world politics. Since maritime stations and access to raw materials were really necessary for all nations, they came to believe that annexation and expansion worked for the salvation of the nation. They were the first to fail to understand the fundamental difference between the old foundation of trade and maritime stations for the sake of trade and the new policy of expansion. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 360

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Gramsci’s hegemony — the mechanism here of the ‘incorruptible’ being won over by common sense about expansion is a proto-hegemonic capture of the opposition. — connects to: Imperial expansion is legitimized as defensive and sustained by manufactured fear.