The Threat Response Differential: 9/11 versus January 6

Al Qaeda's attack on America 23 years ago this week united the nation against an external enemy in a way not seen since World War Two, but it also unleashed powers that violated the Bill of Rights. Donald Trump's January 6, 2021, attempted coup and the internal threat he and his most fanatical supporters represented to the very survival of the Republic has elicited a very different response. Our failure to roll back 9/11-driven executive power grabs and "coup proof" our government against internal authoritarian political threats may come back to haunt us, and soon.

As I watched the World Trade Center towers burn and then collapse in the hours after Osama bin Laden's terrorists' suicide air attacks on September 11, 2001, I knew war against Al Qaeda was both inevitable and clearly necessary. I also knew, on the basis of our history, that several other things were sure to follow.

I was certain the attacks would lead to massive executive power overreach by President George W. Bush, that his actions would be enabled by the Congress and federal courts, that there would be constitutional rights violations at scale, and that even if or when bin Laden and his organization were destroyed, rolling back every terrible thing done in the name of "national security" would be at best an uphill battle.

All of it came to pass.

The draconian, globally encompassing surveillance enabled via the PATRIOT Act and FISA Amendments Act--originally sold as temporary, wartime measures--are at the moment permanent American law. The sprawling, powerful, yet ineffectual internal security behemoth known as the Department of Homeland Security continues its march towards enacting, with Congressional acquiescence if not outright support, travel surveillance and identity "verification" programs that will make anonymous travel impossible.

These legal authorities and programs have been serially abused by what most of us would consider "normal" presidents: George W. Bush and Barack Obama. I'm convinced the only reasons Donald Trump was not able to exploit these same programs and authorities during his prior term in office was 1) his inexperience with the mechanics of wielding governmental power and 2) the efforts on the part of career civil servants and some of Trump's own political appointees to prevent him from using those powers against his stated political opponents.

Yet even with just a motley crew of political and legal sycophants helping him--Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jeffrey Clark, and a mob of thousands he'd summoned to Washington--Trump nearly managed to engineer an actual coup to stay in power. Had he succeeded, the "War on Terror" powers I noted above would've been his to wield against his political enemies, virtually at will.

The subsequent decision of House and Senate Republicans to stand by Trump and to block any efforts to make another authoritarian coup attempt impossible--implementation of the recommendations of the January 6 Select Committee would've been a good place to start--has demonstrated the depths of the GOP's political and constitutional perfidy. As a result, America is just as vulnerable today to another Trumpist coup attempt as it was nearly four years ago.

If Trump beats Vice President Kamala Harris in November and the GOP manages to hold onto the House and retake the Senate, it will fall to Democratic governors to refuse any Trump-controlled Pentagon orders calling up their state National Guard units for operations to suppress political protests or round up illegal immigrants--and possibly American citizens (natural born or naturalized) as well.

The reason I fear this outcome is becoming more likely is that I think too many of our fellow citizens don't have their priorities straight.

On the latest episode of Sarah Longwell's The Focus Group podcast, I listened--as I have all year--to voters, even many Trump supporters, freely acknowledge his personal despicability but still claim how they felt better off economically when Trump was in office. In that September 7 episode, I heard one voter recite the familiar litany of Trump's personal failings, but then pivot to talking about the price of eggs.

If that person had said they'd been out of work for months (they were employed), the comment would've made more sense to me. But that voter, who if I recall correctly was now a Biden-to-Trump or Trump-leaning voter, had clearly elected to memory-hole Trump's attempt to destroy the Republic and was instead focused on typical, pre-Trump era kitchen table economic issues despite the economy and the job situation being pretty good overall, and definitely vastly better than in 1980 when inflation was at 13.5% and interest rates were nearly 20%.

That person, like so many others I've listened to on Longwell's podcast this year, is treating this election largely like any other one and treating Trump like any other candidate despite the fact that he demonstrably is not. Current polling is, unfortunately, showing the same.

On Tuesday and to the extent that Americans are paying attention to it, most will be thinking about if not watching at least portions of the Harris-Trump debate. I'll be thinking about our collective failure to protect our own rights and the tools that have been created over the last two decades that in Donald Trump's hands will make people very quickly forget about the price of eggs.

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