An examination of the profound impact that the War on Terror had
in pushing American politics and society in an authoritarian
direction
For
an entire generation, at home and abroad, the United States has waged
an endless conflict known as the War on Terror. In addition to
multiple ground wars, it has pioneered drone strikes and
industrial-scale digital surveillance, as well as detaining people
indefinitely and torturing them. These conflicts have yielded neither
peace nor victory, but they have transformed America. What began as
the persecution of Muslims and immigrants has become a normalized,
paranoid feature of American politics and security, expanding the
possibilities for applying similar or worse measures against other
targets at home. A politically divided country turned the War on
Terror into a cultural and then tribal struggle, first on the
ideological fringes and ultimately expanding to conquer the
Republican Party, often with the timid acquiescence of the Democratic
Party. Today’s nativist resurgence walked through a door opened by
the 9/11 era.
Reign
of Terror will show how these policies created a foundation for
American authoritarianism and, though it is not a book about Donald
Trump, it will provide a critical explanation of his rise to power
and the sources of his political strength. It will show that Barack
Obama squandered an opportunity to dismantle the War on Terror after
killing Osama bin Laden. That mistake turns out to have been
portentous. By the end of his tenure, the war metastasized into a
broader and bitter culture struggle in search of a demagogue like
Trump to lead it.
A
union of journalism and intellectual history, Reign of Terror
will be a pathbreaking and definitive book with the power to
transform how America understands its national security policies and
their catastrophic impact on its civic life.