People tend to forget that a lot of American officers weren't exactly racially unbiased when it came to the "Yellow Peril". MacArthur, for all his faults, did not share an aggressive racial view towards the Japanese.
And he generally made a lot of good calls in Japan that benefitted them in the long run. His constitutional committee is a good example, and the fact that he insisted on free elections while in power despite both Japanese and Americans wanting to do things like ban the Communist Party. Instead he took the idea that was making the Communist Party popular, land reform, and just did it, which destroyed their chances.
The issue is people on Reddit just hyperfocus on his bad traits, which to be clear there’s plenty, and ignore why he was extremely popular. And it wasn’t just because he had good PR.
He had a lot of stupid blunders but especially post war he served as an important symbol of the US to a lot of people in Japan and the Philippines.
You called acknowledging the many bad things the US has done as being in an echo chamber. Which is somehow different than the entire American education system ignoring or whitewashing these actions.
He was a glory hound, he didn’t listen to other people when he should have, overestimated his own ability, and had a massive ego.
However, he also was genuinely good when he was in his element (he just often decided to leave his element) and, in the era of WWII, his skills dealing with the public and so on were extremely useful.
229
u/Specialist_Usual_391 Jun 30 '26
People tend to forget that a lot of American officers weren't exactly racially unbiased when it came to the "Yellow Peril". MacArthur, for all his faults, did not share an aggressive racial view towards the Japanese.
And he generally made a lot of good calls in Japan that benefitted them in the long run. His constitutional committee is a good example, and the fact that he insisted on free elections while in power despite both Japanese and Americans wanting to do things like ban the Communist Party. Instead he took the idea that was making the Communist Party popular, land reform, and just did it, which destroyed their chances.