After the Fall: Being American in the World We've Made

by Ben Rhodes

It was also easier than addressing the reality, which extended beyond what any government could do, that too many American men of all ethnicities and religious backgrounds were becoming vulnerable to radicalization: men living in isolation and fear, numbed by unattainable wealth and omnipresent social media that affirmed your grievances. Far more Americans would be killed in the decade from 2010 to 2020 by white Christian Americans with guns motivated by that information flow than would be killed by Muslims.

Guns

War on Terror was fine for business, so long as oil-rich states like Iran and Saudi Arabia fought their wars through proxies instead of directly, so long as the terrorist attacks by radicalized individuals utilized car bombs instead of nuclear ones. The rise of China was good for business, so long as gains from access to Chinese money and markets outweighed losses from Chinese theft of intellectual property. Trump himself could be good for business, doing away with taxes and burdensome regulations. There was a logic, I supposed, to seeing the world through this narrow window; part of it was turning a blind eye to the populist radicalization of the American right that was necessary to elect someone who would continue to do something as unpopular as cutting more regulations and taxes for the wealthy.

War on terrorism

The Internet was the perfect host for conspiracy theories, offering a bottomless well of distraction from the minutiae of life, a community of believers, explanations for events beyond our control. What religion used to do.

Internet