How the war on terror primed America for autocracy

The Economist  |  Rosa Brooks

The war on terror directly primed America for autocracy, establishing a clear and direct path from the 9/11 attacks to the events of January 6th, according to the article's core thesis. Author Rosa Brooks vividly recounts her personal experience of learning about the 9/11 attacks, a moment shared by virtually every American over 40.

She describes driving to work, listening to National Public Radio, and arriving at an office filled with shocked, crying colleagues huddled around computer monitors. These screens repeatedly displayed the harrowing images of planes striking the towers, tiny human figures leaping into nothingness, the subsequent collapse of the towers, and the rising clouds of smoke and debris. This profound national trauma and the subsequent governmental responses to the 'war on terror' are presented as critical antecedents to later shifts towards autocratic tendencies in the United States, culminating in the January 6th events.

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