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Events • August 13, 2021 

# *Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump*

For an entire generation, at home and abroad, the United States has waged a war on terror. Fighting it has produced neither peace nor victory, but it has transformed America. 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 open a door for today’s nationalist, exclusionary resurgence.

In *Reign of Terror*, journalist Spencer Ackerman argues that war on terror policies laid a foundation for American authoritarianism. In Ackerman’s account, Barack Obama’s failure to end the war on terror after the killing of Osama Bin Laden allowed cultural polarization to progress and set the groundwork for Donald Trump’s rise to power. As we approach the 20th anniversary of 9/11, please join us for a discussion of how the war on terror transformed the United States and the prospects for moving away from its divisive excesses.

[![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) 
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/). 

##### Featuring 

![Ackerman-cropped.jpg](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2021-07/Ackerman-cropped.jpg?itok=AIXiJJJB) 

##### Spencer Ackerman 

Author, Contributing Editor, Daily Beast

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](https://twitter.com/attackerman) 

![R-Hall-cropped.jpg](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2021-07/R-Hall-cropped.jpg?itok=dxPbTG3g) 

##### Abigail R. Hall 

Associate Professor in Economics, Bellarmine University

![e-simpson-cropped.jpg](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2021-07/e-simpson-cropped.jpg?itok=m7cD5NAa) 

##### Erin M. Simpson 

former Co-Host, *Bombshell* podcast from *War on the Rocks*

[ 

](https://twitter.com/charlie_simpson) 

[![Justin Logan cropped portrait new](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2023-08/Justin-Logan-cropped.jpg?itok=1xXiDWfG)](/people/justin-logan) 

##### [Justin Logan](/people/justin-logan)

Director of Defense and Foreign Policy Studies, Cato Institute

[ 

](https://x.com/JustinTLogan) [ 

](mailto:jlogan@cato.org)