THE ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11 ★^1105determined. Counting both congressional and presidential races, the campaign
cost more than $1.5 billion, mostly raised from wealthy individuals and corpo-
rate donors. This reinforced the widespread belief that money dominated the
political system. The implications for democracy of the ever- closer connection
between power in the economic marketplace and power in the marketplace
of politics and ideas would be widely debated in the early twenty- first century.
Evidence abounded of a broad dis engagement from public life. As govern-
ments at all levels competed to turn their activities over to private contractors,
and millions of Americans walled themselves off from their fellow citizens by
taking up residence in socially homogeneous gated communities, the very idea
of a shared public sphere seemed to dissolve. Nearly half the eligible voters did
not bother to go to the polls, and in state and local elections, turnouts typi-
cally ranged between only 20 and 30 percent. More people watched the tele-
vised Nixon- Kennedy debates of 1960 than the Bush- Gore debates of 2000, even
though the population had risen by 100 million. Both candidates sought to
occupy the political center and relied on public- opinion polls and media con-
sultants to shape their messages. Major issues like health care, race relations,
and economic inequality went virtually unmentioned during the campaign.
And no one discussed the issue that would soon come to dominate Bush’s
presidency— the threat of international terrorism.
THE ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11
September 11, 2001, a beautiful late- summer morning, began with the sun
rising over the East Coast of the United States in a crystal- clear sky. But Septem-
ber 11 soon became one of the most tragic dates in American history.
Around 8 am, hijackers seized control of four jet airliners filled with passen-
gers. They crashed two into the World Trade Center in New York City, igniting
infernos that soon caused these buildings, which dominated the lower Manhat-
tan skyline, to collapse. A third plane hit a wing of the Pentagon, the country’s
military headquarters, in Washington, D.C. On the fourth aircraft, passengers
who had learned of these events via their cell phones overpowered the hijack-
ers. The plane crashed in a field near Pittsburgh, killing all aboard. Counting
the nineteen hijackers, more than 200 passengers, pilots, and flight attendants,
and victims on the ground, around 3,000 people died on September 11. The vic-
tims included nearly 400 police and firefighters who had rushed to the World
Trade Center in a rescue effort and perished when the “twin towers” collapsed.
Relatives and friends desperately seeking information about the fate of those
lost in the attacks printed thousands of “missing” posters. These remained in
Why did Al Qaeda attack the United States on September 11, 2001?