GOP doesn’t love war. Nevertheless, the current conservative movement, probably since Goldwater, seems more enamored than democrats of violent or authoritarian solutions to problems. Bush seemed impatient with the Iraq inspectors, neo-conservatives felt that dumping Saddam violently would spread democracy westward and perhaps benefit Israel, Reagan felt that supporting govt by death squads in El Salvador and Guatemala and arming the Contras would be better than taking the advice of Latin American democratic allies to negotiate. Opposition to the Vietnam war came from LBJ and Nixon’s left. (There are naturally examples of this type of foolishness on the left as well.)
Though on the same continuum, Trump is way over the line in his suggestions about torture and killing terrorists’ children, as that his hardly something the GOP would support. Still, it’s hard to imagine a Democrat campaigning on more harsh treatment of prisoners, killing terrorists’ families, even beating up demonstrators.
Doesn’t mean these solutions are bad ones, though I believe they are, but they represent a more right wing tendency than left.
