According to The Economist, two decades of counterterrorism policies enacted after nine eleven have inadvertently created the infrastructure for authoritarianism in America. The article argues that extraordinary security measures justified as temporary wartime exceptions — expanded surveillance, broader executive powers, weakened civil liberties protections — never reverted to their pre-attack limits. Instead, they became the machinery through which authoritarian governance could operate. What was sold as necessary security against foreign threats has left democratic institutions and constitutional norms vulnerable to control by domestic power.

Listen to this story

Hear this and more stories in a personalized audio briefing.

Open The Chonkerton