The Throughline

 Paul Krugman made a mistake on Twitter today in suggesting that the US did not panic after 9/11--we entirely did. It might not have looked like an instantaneous paroxysm of broken glass and flaming mosques all over the US, but it happened, sporadically, over the course of years. People who were visibly different, like Sikhs, were certainly attacked for their cultural difference without regard to whether they had any culpability. And after so many years, the damage accumulated. 

The Patriot Act got passed and ushered in an era of surveillance and profiling of people based on their origins and affiliations. We sanctified a shakedown of people not based on their activity, but their identity. People like Michelle Malkin, who advocated internment, and Pamela Geller, an eliminationist,  became mildly lionized. 

So, let's try and think about how Geller leads to an Anders Breivik, right?  How this has ripples towards Christchurch and Squirrel Hill? Because it ascertained that "foreign" is bad because some foreigners believe their religion a bit different than you do. And related that difference as being the reason behind murders based on--bigotry related to religious difference. 

There's a throughline. 

I remember the foofaraw regarding the idea of a real estate development that included an Islamic studies center being a major issue of 2010.  I think about this kind of thing a lot.  I think about the invertebrate Republican humans who surveyed the inert body of Alan Kurdi and decided that they didn't want nothing to do with any Syrian refugees.  I think about how even microchipping humans and border walls with moats and weaponized alligators even become a thing. 

The events of 9/11 sickened many people. It radicalized them. Maybe we didn't notice because they were white folks. But they did crazy shit like burn Korans and call Barack Obama a Muslim. And they became very anti-immigrant and basically very racist. Stocked up on weapons because Alex Jones implied it was the thing to do. And then they made Trump president.

You want to tell me no one panicked before someone like Trump becomes president? Nothing but panic describes it. 9/11 panic is a kind of throughline to Trump. I don't like it, but I see how it happened.