top | item 47207880

(no title)

rayiner | 14 hours ago

Judging by George W. Bush’s approval rating right after 9/11, it probably wouldn’t be very many.

discuss

order

jfengel|10 hours ago

You may be right, but a lot has changed in the last quarter century. The 9/11 attacks came at a time when the Cold War had just ended and the dotcom boom had just given us a strong economy. There was a lot of resentment over the 2000 election but it didn't seem like the end of the world.

Since then public discourse has almost completely broken down. The President spends his days thinking of insults, and has deployed masked armed forces against civilians. As bitter as 2000 was, it's nothing compared to January 6 2021.

I imagine the details would depend on the circumstances. Say, a targeted assassination versus killing thousands of civilians. But I'm not so sure that things would look anything like 9/11.

Cyph0n|12 hours ago

Now imagine if Bush & his family were assassinated by AQ on 9/11, and you’ll understand why the majority of Iranians inside Iran will not be celebrating.

woodruffw|12 hours ago

Bush’s approval rating benefited from the US being attacked, and then responding. Trump has the order wrong; preemptively attacking countries (even bad ones) doesn’t poll very well with Americans.

(This is ahead of Trump’s base being isolationist; it’s not even clear who wants this besides conventional hawks.)

rayiner|11 hours ago

I think it’s just wagging the dog: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wag_the_Dog.

Combined with the fact that the media will be confused about how to respond. You’ll have Iranian diaspora celebrating, like Venezuelans did after the capture of Maduro, making it impossible for the media to frame this simply in terms of “Trump is racist.” As a result, the whole thing will get memory holed, just like the Venezuela attack.

bdangubic|13 hours ago

if starting a war in the middle east gets you high approval ratings after campaigning as “presdent of peace” and crying like a little bitch trying to get nobel “peace” prize, the downfall of America is coming a lot sooner than most are ballparking (we are well on the way)

estimator7292|13 hours ago

9/11 was the first major attack on the continental US in living memory. It was literally a world-altering event for most of the population, and it radically changed the geopolitical calculus of the average citizen.

Lots of american citizens demanded retaliation. Our counterattacks weren't sanctioned by congress, but they were by the people.

Meanwhile, the current president just started a war based on a temper tantrum and an attempt to distract the population.

These aren't really the same thing.

rayiner|12 hours ago

I agree with you that the Iran strike is an effort to distract the public from Trump’s failure to bring down grocery prices like he promised: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wag_the_Dog

I was addressing the hypothetical of how Americans would react if Trump was killed by a foreign country in airstrikes similar to how the Ayatollah was killed. I think Americans would react like they did after 9/11, instead of celebrating like many are in Iran.