In 1941, Japan’s Pearl Harbor surprise attack triggered a nearly 2-year chain of American military catastrophes. Yet Americans remained determined, patient, and optimistic — committed to defeating evil. Today, America and Israel have undone much of the Islamic Republic’s 47-year military buildup in weeks. Yet, once again, as Israel crushes a dastardly foe, it’s losing PR points. Only now, America’s getting the reputational black eye too — at home!

The Iranians are banking on American impatience stoked by partisan zealousness. Many Israelis who detest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu support the war because they fear Iran more. Yet, for too many Americans, Trump-hatred trumps everything — turning this justified war against Iran’s genocidal regime into another referendum on Donald Trump.

Most journalists demoralize with doom-and-gloom — instantly condemning Trump’s “reckless” war, insisting “A War of Choice Does Not Make Us Safer.” Reports of victories come wrapped in anxiety-producing headlines: “In War’s First Week, a Punishing Military Campaign with No Coherent Endgame.”

Reporters fuel economic worries long before they happen, as CNN details “3 things you need to understand about how war with Iran will raise your cost of living.” No wonder “59% of Americans disapprove.” That’s “churnalism” not journalism — churning up fears while soothsaying about worst-case-scenarios that might be rather than reporting what was.

It’s hard to see jihadi evil through partisan blinders. Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine claimed “Trump has launched an unnecessary, idiotic, and illegal war against Iran that puts America’s servicemembers and embassy personnel at risk.”

Consequential wars are often long and brutal. They require patience. America’s wars averaged six years. America only won World War II after four years — and it started disastrously. The Japanese conquered the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island. German U-boats menaced the East Coast.

Still, most Americans focused on winning. In April 1942, 75,000 troops surrendered at Bataan. The “Voice of Freedom” radio program nevertheless insisted that “the spirit that made it stand — a beacon to all the Liberty-loving peoples of the World — cannot fall!”

Newspapers — then — balanced reports of losses with stories about factories opening, commissioned ships, America’s industrial power stirring.

Rather than complaining and predicting economic ruin, Americans treated rationing as noble. “Plant a Victory Garden: Our Food is Fighting,” one poster urged. “Grumble gardens” weren’t welcome. Soon, 40% of the vegetables Americans ate were home-grown. Women felt empowered, with “Rosie the Riveter” affirming “We Can Do It!”

Americans took responsibility for their troops, because “Loose Lips Sink Ships,” and “Waste Helps the Enemy.” A poster encouraging carpooling declared: “When You Ride ALONE, You Ride with Hitler.”

In January 1943, even after winning the turning-point Battle of Midway, President Franklin Roosevelt warned that “1943 will not be an easy year for us.” FDR knew that Americans “are never quite satisfied with anything short of miracles.”

Exercising a heavy-handedness that would backfire today, the Office of War Information (OWI) could suspend export licenses if movie scripts weren’t patriotic. OWI asked seven questions of every film, checking how it would help America win.

Ninety percent of Walt Disney’s studio worked on morale-boosting. In 1942’s “Out of the Frying Pan Into the Firing Line,” Minnie Mouse and Pluto showed how saving bacon-and-eggs grease created glycerin for explosives. In the Oscar-winning, politically-incorrect, “Der Fuehrer’s Face,” (1943) Donald Duck experiences Nazi Germany as one big labor camp, then wakes up happily in the good ole’ USA, hugging his mini Statue of Liberty.

This World War II campaign built on George Creel’s World War I-era Committee on Public Information. For centuries, armies usually clashed on battlefields, far from civilians. Airplanes, rockets, and the 20th century’s all-encompassing ideologies swept citizens into total wars. The London Times translated the German word “Heimatfront,” hometown-front in 1917. By 1918, Americans were perfecting the new dark arts of PR to mobilize “the homefront.”

“Public opinion is a vital military force…,” Creel taught, “a weapon of war no less than a tank or a plane.” Seventy-five thousand “Four Minute Men” offered patriotic homilies in the 240 seconds it took to change movie reels. “If the line at home breaks, the line in the trenches will crumble,” they preached. “Your patriotism is the fuel for our boys’ rifles.” Meanwhile, war posters like Uncle Sam’s iconic “I Want YOU for U.S. Army,” papered America.

The homefront became an essential battlefront. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower’s June 1944 D-Day message proclaimed: “Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men.”

Two decades later, the Vietnam War disaster and the 1960s counter-culture broke the homefront. Reporters attacked the “Credibility Gap” between government reports and reality. They justifiably mocked “The Five O’Clock Follies” — military briefings at Saigon’s Rex Hotel. This journalistic cynicism amid government ham-handedness shattered something precious too.

Today, the once-mobilized “homefront” is “the homeland” demanding “security,” a passive, all-or-nothing state, tolerating no errors. The government’s sterile language seeking COOP — “continuity of operations” — insulates the “civilian sector” from wartime inconvenience, or responsibility.

Sourpuss journalists and obsessive anti-Trumpers exploit Americans’ heavily-reduced pain threshold. In this ever-spiraling bipartisan war on social trust, a defensive president didn’t bother cultivating public opinion. He knew most would decide how dangerous Iran was based on how much they liked — or disliked — him.

Until the 1960s, the media profited from patriotism; today, partisanship is profitable. But just as yesterday’s cheerleaders oversold, today’s skeptics go overboard in sapping Americans’ confidence. These institutions undermined themselves too. Trust in the government cratered from 77% in 1964 to 19% today. Faith in reporters plummeted from 72% then to 28% today.

Americans need rebalancing — without resurrecting government bullying or Hollywood propagandizing. The homefront still fortifies the battlefront, just as today’s breakfront weakens America: dismissing gains, maximizing fears, and pressing Trump for a quick end not a decisive victory.

The answers don’t lie in censorship, propaganda campaigns, and a mindless devotion to the commander in chief or our troops. Still, Americans need some loyalty, appreciation of complexity and uncertainty, along with much perspective, moral clarity, and that essential wartime asset — patience.

Troy is an American presidential historian and a senior fellow in Zionist thought at the Jewish People Policy Institute in Jerusalem. Last year he published “To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream.”

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