Reign of Terror: How 9/11 Armed Trump
Summary
In this WhoWhatWhy episode, host Jeff Sheckman interviews Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Spencer Ackerman to discuss his book, Reign of Terror. Ackerman argues that 9/11 did not create America’s surveillance state or nativist politics but instead opened a gateway for historical currents of settler colonialism and imperial violence to take power under the guise of national emergency. The conversation traces how the Bush administration’s expansive "War on Terror" and the Obama administration’s maintenance of these mechanisms ultimately destabilized the nation, creating the conditions for T…
Topics discussed
Introduction: Revisiting the 9/11 narrative 25 years later
Guest introduction: Spencer Ackerman and his book
The War on Terror as a gateway to historical nativism
Neoconservative opportunism and the expansion of the enemy
Why neoconservatives became anti-Trump forces
The Obama administration's handling of the War on Terror
Surveillance, deportation, and the rise of domestic nativism
The myth of safety and the cycle of violence abroad
American exceptionalism and the difficulty of de-escalation
White terror exemption and the normalization of domestic violence
January 6th as the inevitable endpoint of the 9/11 era
Closing remarks and resources
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