The war on terror primed America for autocracy

War on Terror as Autocratic Turning Point

• Many see 9/11 and the “Global War on Terror” as the moment expansive wartime powers were normalized: Patriot Act, mass surveillance, torture programs, indefinite detention, Guantánamo, militarized police, and Islamophobia.
• Others argue this was a continuation of a longer trajectory: WWI/WWII, Cold War, Red Scare, war on drugs, and a century of growing security apparatus and foreign entanglements.
• Several note that tools first justified against foreigners/“terrorists” are now used domestically (e.g., terrorism designations against protesters).

Civil Liberties, Fear, and Security Theater

• Commenters highlight a large mismatch between the small statistical risk of terrorism and the scale of liberty surrendered, contrasting it with far deadlier risks (cars, guns, Covid, healthcare failures).
• TSA and airport security are debated: some call it pure theater; others say it’s hard to separate effective from performative measures, especially in the post-attack panic.
• Torture is treated by many as a moral red line and emblematic of a totalitarian turn; a minority argue torture and authoritarianism aren’t tightly coupled historically.

Empire, Decline, and Historical Analogies

• Strong use of Roman Empire analogies: overextended republic-turned-empire, dependence on military power, and eventual decline through external shocks and internal rot.
• Disagreement over whether recent military failures (e.g., in the Middle East, Iran) mark retreat from empire or just another setback.
• Some say bin Laden “won” by luring the US into ruinous forever wars and political breakdown; others counter that his strategic objectives (e.g., expelling US forces) largely failed.

Democracy, Parties, and Structural Drift

• Repeated concern about an empowered executive and a Congress that abdicates responsibility, enabling “royal prerogative”-style rule.
• Debate over whether voting still meaningfully constrains power in a two-party, winner‑take‑all system; proposals include ranked-choice and structural reform.
• Polarization is variously attributed to post‑9/11 politics, mass immigration, social media, and long-term economic inequality.

Surveillance and Power: State vs Corporations

• Some see corporate data harvesting (Google, Meta, Apple) as more worrying than state surveillance.
• Others respond that only the state can imprison or kill, so its access to that same data remains the core threat.

Other Threads

• Long side debates on the partition of India, religious nationalism, and post‑colonial borders.
• Discussion of US–Israel relations, lobbying, and an emerging split in US domestic politics over support for Israel.
• Examples cited of harsh terrorism-related sentences for domestic protesters as evidence of “war on terror” tools being turned inward.