The American public absorbed antiwar protests with bemused tolerance rather than hostility

Evidence

There were a few remarks like “Go Back to Russia!” and “They must be some nuts.” But there was relatively little hostility. There was much more curiosity and amusement and tolerance. The American public can absorb anything cheerfully—the bombings, the burnings, and even the balloons. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1049

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the counterculture-chapter’s portrait of a society already numb to spectacle — the same absorb-anything complacency that later books argue enabled the war’s escalation. — connects to: The US public was deeply divided against entering WWI — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 152; Total war’s demands bred intolerance of any divided loyalty in America — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 1218; Over ten million people protested worldwide against the 2003 Iraq war invasion — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 123 (+1 more)