For certain, if leader or a party indicates that they are unwilling to take steps to defend this country from real or perceived threats, they will be gone.

Pretty cynical, hey?

I don't think most Americans even think about the subject - At least until it "come home" in some way

It is much more difficult for the 1%'ers to gin up a war mentality in the modern world when Americans are having doubts and difficulties maintaining their families and lifestyles. In some respects we are in uncharted territory in regard to the wealthy getting the poor to fight their battles. The digital age has changed the equation. How many Americans will stand for a draft in 2013 to fight in the Syrian civil war? I think not nearly as many as before the age before the Internet.

Most people tend to be hawkish when it isn't their own kin that are used as cannon fodder.

could be convinced that it was necessary to nuke Canada,
given two years of skillful preparatory propaganda.



Screw their support - work hard to change the Media that can mislead them so easily.
The Web is a great start...

Then they become "patriotic" because they're fearful of not going along with the mob.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.  H.L. Mencken