The war on terror primed America for autocracy

How old are you? I think a lot of younger folks don't fully adjust for important factors: plane hijackings used to be much more common, 9/11 was committed by the second group of Islamic terrorists who tried to blow up the World Trade Center, and 9/11 was the third major terrorist attack by Al-Qaeda in a 4 year span. It's easy now to say that it was a crazy worst-case scenario, but that was not at all obvious then; for all we knew, securing cockpits might have been impractical, and we'd just have to prepare the Air Force to shoot down a couple hijacked flights every decade.

There were real excesses, and I ultimately agree with you that many of them were predictable in advance, but there was no feasible version of a response that did not go at least a little into crazyland. It was a crazy time.

Either way, I'd just caution that the empire-ness of a country's military or diplomatic reach doesn't necessarily tell us what to expect in terms of its internal hellhole-ness of authoritarianism.

That's just not looking back far enough. The war on terror was a continuation. I'd say we're seeing the results of not stringing up all the slave owners after the Civil War.

American industrialists going back to the robber baron era and beyond have always loved autocracy, specifically fascism. This was heightened by the fear of communism. When FDR was elected, there was an attempted coup (ie the business plot [1]). Hitler was a fan of Henry Ford and named him in Mein Kampf. The Nazi regime enjoyed a certain amount of popularity in the US. There was a rally by the German American Bund in Madison Square Gardens in 1939. But FDR gave concessions to the working class that we still enjoy today (eg Social Security).

After WW2, we decided to make an enemy of Stalin (again, because communism). Thousands of former Nazis emigrated to the US (and, no, not just Operation Paper Clip; they were also in the CIA and FBI). Former Nazis gained high positions in the West German military and ultimatly NATO (eg Adolf Heuzinger [2]).

The mere existence of the Soviet Union forced the US government to give more concessions to the working class. The 1950s were incredibly prosperous as a result, in an era when the top marginal tax rate was 91% and the ratio of CEO to median wage was a fraction of what it is now.

The Fall of the Soviet Union was about the worst thing that could happen for normal Americans because suddenly there was no counterbalance to US global hegemony. The 1990s saw the Democrats abandon the New Deal in favor of Reagan economics and policies despite ~60 years of almost unbroken control of Congress up until that point. They then sowed the seeds for the destruction of American manufacturing and having an economy completely focused on hoarding land and housing. The 1990s is really where that began to go out of control.

My point is that history didn't begin with the war on terror. 9/11 itself was blowback from American imperialism that had been around since the 19th century.

I'd say if anything primed America for autocracy it was the domino effect from desegregation. This led to the political activation of the evangelical movement (no, it wasn't abortion) and evagelicals are primed to be followers. Add to this that there's no effective opposition because the Democrats decided to be Republican Lite and here we are.

All of this came about because a handful of very wealthy people wanted to be even wealthier at the expense of everyone else.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Heusinger

What do you think distinguishes the post-9/11 craziness from the Cold War/Red Scare craziness?

My reason for asking is because I believe that "that's unconstitutional!" has been a failed protest message for more like 100 years than 25 years (and there's threads of state violence at the local and state levels that go back far longer). And IMO that is even stronger evidence that words on an ~240-year-old-doc—and the way some interpret the second amendment in relation to those words—is a completely powerless measure against state violence. The United States is not exceptional in that regard. We'll only have a better country if we constantly, actively, choose to vote it that way.

> Do you mean like he’s going to drain the swamp?

I'm not entirely sure either; after all, perhaps only Americans themselves know best. In China, Vance is generally considered to belong to the nativist camp. He doesn't support the U.S. attacking Iran and has been surprisingly quiet on this matter, as it would primarily benefit Israel rather than the United States. Therefore, if he were elected as the next president, we might see the U.S. and Israel gradually drift apart. Of course, powerful lobbying groups might prevent him from getting elected. To be honest, I don't really think Vance can succeed. I'm not entirely sure how much actual power the MAGA movement holds, but it seems they rely far too heavily on Trump's personal appeal.