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In my Intro to American Politics class yesterday we spent about 10 minutes watching CNN coverage of the 9/11 attacks as it unfolded. Afterwards, I asked if students felt anxious. Every hand in the class was raised. 1/
Many students today were born after the attacks, and almost none remember them. So I explained that most of our modern politics -- and pathologies -- are downstream of that and the impeachment of Bill Clinton. The 2nd and 3rd order effects are tremendous. 2/
So if you want to understand modern American politics, and why the US did many of the things it did in the 2000s, you have to think how you feel today, then watching it in real time, not knowing how the attacks would unfold. 3/
Tied it in to one of my favorite articles, by @sgadarian, suggesting that people who watched news on T.V. as opposed to reading in papers were more likely to support hawkish policies, even after various controls were put into place. 4/
@sgadarian Some other things that I had forgotten --when the second plane hit, CNN's reporter missed it (his back was to the tower), and he was reporting it as though the fuselage in the 1st tower had exploded again, sending debris into the second tower. 5/
@sgadarian Second, CNN was running the Dow futures ticker at the bottom. It is pretty steady until the second plane hits, then immediately plunges. 6/
@sgadarian Third, Osama bin Laden's name isn't mentioned until shortly before the tower collapses, when the reporter says "some are speculating it may be tied to OBL, since the Bush Administration recently warned he may be looking to strike American targets." 7/
@sgadarian Anyway, watching the footage does remind somewhat how it felt, the air of uncertainty that surrounded us at the time, this things we got right, and things we got very wrong. 8/8
