ANALYSIS: REIGN OF TERROR : HOW THE: WAR ON TERROR CREATED TRUMP

Ackerman contends that the American response to 9/11 made President Trump possible. The evidence for this blunt-force thesis is presented in “Reign of Terror” with an impressive combination of diligence and verve, deploying Ackerman’s deep stores of knowledge as a national security journalist to full effect. The result is a narrative of the last 20 years that is upsetting, discerning and brilliantly argued.

“Reign of Terror” begins with a prologue titled “The Worst Terrorist Attack in American History” — a phrase that for years had referred not to the 9/11 attacks but to the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. In the immediate aftermath, Muslims were blamed. Newspaper columnists started railing against foreigners and immigrants. The actual culprit, Timothy McVeigh, had been an avowed white supremacist, though you wouldn’t have necessarily known it from the media reports at the time, which kept emphasizing McVeigh’s…READ MORE.