I am genuinely puzzled by this:
A third of the country thinks 9/11 changed America for the better? That seems crazy to me. Off the top of my head, 9/11 produced the following changes:
- A pair of long, pointless wars.
- A huge increase in domestic surveillance.
- An abiding fear among half the population that they aren't safe.
- Security theater in airports and elsewhere.
- Right-wing fear campaigns about sharia law and the immigration of Muslims generally.
- An increase in partisan polarization.
I suppose you might think that the general increase in security is a good thing because we were too complacent about terrorism before 9/11. But that's all I can come up with.
I feel like I must be missing something really obvious here. But what?
The most successful terrorist attack in US history also resulted in skyrocketing approval for the guy who let it happen. 9/11 increased the "We're No. 1" sentiment and unified the country. That unity was to some extent illusory, and in any event has faded in the ensuing years.
“Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven”
—Mitch McConnell
I'm not sure the balance of 9/11's contribution to partisan polarization. At the time, there was strong bi-partisan support for invading Afghanistan, and arguably the Dems leadership pretty much fell in line behind the legitimization of US torture.
Maybe there is nostalgia for the comparative unity of the 1st year after 9/11?
But for me 20 years later, I have to agree, 1/3 of Americans thinking 9/11 changed the US for the better shows a vast gulf between my (perfectly logical & scientific 😉 ) world view & 1/3 of Americans.
It's up there with Bush Jr winning the Presidency in 2000 for "event with the worst political impact on the US within the past 30 years".
An America where 9/11 never happens - either because we got more fortunate and it was stopped, or because we elected Gore who always took this stuff seriously under Clinton and it gets stopped - is just wild to contemplate. I'm just trying to imagine a world where we never get the cultural impact of 9/11 on popular films, never spend all that money and lives on invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, etc.
It certainly fucked up popular music and film. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/09/9-11-when-pop-culture-went-into-patriotic-overdrive/
"Eve of Destruction" did nothing wrong.
I believe I've read some right-wing takes in which 9/11 finally woke us up to the danger of scary dark-skinned people, so it was good.
That one third are obviously the para-nazi wingnuts who voted for the guy who reassured them about the size of his dick.
Wait, Kevin, did you miss that the survey was taken three times (2002, 2011 and 2021)? And that only the results for 2002 showed the improvement you mentioned, probably due to the national sense of purpose and unity, but by 2021 results matched your view, i.e. a bad impact all around?
He didn't miss it at all. Kevin's astonishment was expressed in his first two full sentences:
"A third of the country thinks 9/11 changed America for the better? That seems crazy to me. "
A third--That's the 2021 number. It's astonishing to him (and to me) that 20 years later, there are still 1/3 of Americans who think the attack improved America.
You two are still astonished even after Trump got elected in 2016?
Whoops. My bad
Well, it created lots of jobs with six-figure salaries for government contractors in Northern Virginia.
The Leidos DC United kits are the tits, though.
Is that 33% of the total, or 33% of those who answered "yes" to whether it had a lasting impact?
What's the breakdown of yes/no on the first part of the question? That doesn't seem to be given here.
It's in the linked article: "more than 8 in 10 Americans say those events changed the country in a lasting way"
The clue is the percentage, one third. Those are the dead enders, the deplorables, the Trumpers. They think the country is better off because it helps them generate fear campaigns about sharia law and the immigration of Muslims generally. And it
increased partisan polarization.
If you are an evangelical, 9/11 rsulted in our doubling down on the "Israel, may she always be right, but Israel right or wrong" policy and supposedly 30-35% of the people in the country identify as evangelical. Then again it could just be that Hunter Thompson had us pegged 50 eyars ago
“This maybe the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it—that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.”
Gonzo journalism has really fucked us up so fuck thst guy.
Of course it changed us for the Better
Muslims learned to dance
Trump saw thousands of them dancing on rooftops on his way into New York.
Are you forgetting the important stuff?
I feel like I must be missing something really obvious here.
Freedom fries. Duh.
Republican strategists around GW Bush, led by Karl Rove, made a very conscious, strategic decision, even as the ruins of the WTC were still smoldering, to use 9/11 as a partisan wedge issue: were you a patriotic American who wanted to defend freedom (viz: support everything Republicans wanted), or a wussy-ass liberal Democrat who cares more about terrorists feelings' than dead children? Well, 20 years later, America's place in the world is much dimmed -- we've retreated in ignominy from the Middle East, still have a bunch of prisoners in Guantanamo we can't try in any legitimate court because the evidence for holding them was produced via torture, and we can't stabilize our economy effectively because of decades of deficit spending on tax cuts and the military.
Bin Laden may be dead, but he couldn't have wished for a better outcome to his great jihad.
Max Cleland was a punk!
An abiding fear among half the population that they aren't safe.
This is seen by 1/3 of the population as good and appropriate
I am of Spanish heritage and keep in contact with relatives in Madrid. I have an uncle in Madrid, a university professor by occupation, that made a fascinating comment to me about America and 9/11. He said, ‘prior to 9/11 the US was a naïve superpower. Unlike most Europeans nations, or Russia, the US really had never been attacked in the ‘homeland’ (I guess he had a selective memory of Pearl Harbor). 9/11 forced America to open its eyes to the globe and the consequences of events in distant lands.’
While I don’t fully agree with my uncle, and clearly, I dislike many of the 9/11 domestic changes, I do think that the attack on the Twin Towers changed America’s perspective on foreign affairs: unlike the Korean war, Vietnam, and various smaller scale military engagements, 9/11 forced the average American, at least for a moment, to view a risk (terrorism) as a responsibility that America shares with the rest of the world. Terrorist attacks in say Athens or Berlin would not have had the same impact in the US prior to 9/11.
Does that make America better? Well, I would say 9/11 made America less insular and MAYBE that is a good thing…
Pearl Harbor certainly wasn't the Homeland back in 1941.
Hawaii had the status of Puerto Rico, more or less, back then: Some islands we owned out in the middle of the ocean. Yes, everyone was outraged that American soldiers were killed and American ships sunk, but it was not the same reaction they would have had if the Japanese had bombed Seattle.
They tried to bomb Seattle!
Unlike most Europeans nations, or Russia, the US really had never been attacked in the ‘homeland’...
Erm, Washington, DC was put to the torch by an invading, European army. It doesn't get much more "homeland" than one's capital.
Brits generally do not consider themselves to be "European". After all, "the wogs begin at Calais".
I don't think you missed a thing, Kevin. It IS crazy.
> I feel like I must be missing something really obvious here. But what?
What's odd is that the percentage is so low. 45% of the country are bonafide nut case racists, yet only 2/3rds of them said they thought 9/11 had improved things. And we can pretty much guess what those white supremacists had in mind when they say things had gotten better. In fact, Kevin listed some of them:
* Wars! We get to blow things up and kill people!
* Racism! We get to be rude to anyone who we think might be muslim.
* Torture! Condoned by the military once again!
Here is a uncomplete list of how 9/11 made America is now "better"
1) GWB and republicans were elected/re-elected.
2) Muslims now have more discrimination against them.
3) Our military showed how tough we are by killing a million Middle Eastern people in wars of imperialisms.
4) We are now a full surveillance police state and only Evil people are in fear.
5) The trillions spent on killing people in the Middle east would have been wasted helping poor people.
6) Halliburton and other Military corporations and CEO's made a lot of money.
7) We all felt better after America Bombed all those weddings in Afghanistan.
I miss the destruction of Logan Airport, where the 9-11 attack originated from.
Can't help but think it's the question functions as more of a crude litmus test for basic jingoistic patriotism. 9/11 made the U.S. better because the attack made us stronger (to acknowledge the opposite submits that the terrorists have in some way won). An emotional rather than logical response.
The thinking is we unified to battle the demonic Muslim Threat and godless weenie liberals. Strength through conflict.
It's not wrong to assume a shocking attack can unify a populace, the gop just decided it wasn't politically effective for them.
1/3 of the country is the Donald Trump base. Greater authoritarianism and hostility to Muslims are a positive development.