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Thursday, March 28, 2024
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The likelihood of an active draft in the near future is slim, multiple UF professors said. Gaining the public support necessary to reenact the draft would be politically impossible.

In 1973, a draft ended to combat public opposition to the Vietnam War. Since then, eligible people have continued to register for the theoretical future draft in the process of applying for federal student aid and driver licenses.

The Selective Service System would recruit people from that registry in the event the U.S. faced an immediate existential threat and the active draft was reinstated.

The draft is still inactive, the selective service clarified in a tweet in response to renewed interest following the U.S. airstrike on Gen. Qassem Soleimani. It would take congressional approval for the draft to activate.

This is unlikely for a number of reasons, said Paul Ortiz, a UF history professor. Lawmakers would first need to conduct a successful campaign in favor of the active draft. Current public distrust of the government makes this difficult.

Incidents like Watergate have seeded public distrust in the government, Ortiz said. Launching a campaign to enter a large-scale war – drastic enough to necessitate the draft – would require faith and support from the public that does not currently exist.

“It’s like the government saying: Hey, trust me. Would I lie to you?” Ortiz said. “The answer is: Yeah. You lie to me a lot.”

People don’t want another war, Ortiz said. He participated in an anti-war demonstration at the intersection of Northwest 16th Boulevard and Northwest 43rd Street Tuesday afternoon and said the support he saw there was greater than he’d experienced in previous demonstrations.

UF’s history with the military stands 11 stories tall on campus. Century Tower was erected in 1957 as a memorial for alumni who died in World Wars I and II.

Norman Goda, a UF history professor, wrote in an email that it’s harder to gain support for wars far away. Americans feel they have less at stake in areas like the Middle East, he said.

President Donald Trump’s history with the draft serves as another barrier, Goda said. Trump evaded the draft in 1968 on the grounds of a medical exemption for bone spurs in his heels.

Goda said he can’t imagine a successful draft campaign from the administration of a president who side-stepped it.

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Contact Hannah Phillips at hphillips@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter at @haphillips96.

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