The War on Terror Never Ended… It Came Home (From Kabul to Minneapolis)

Alex breaks down Reign of Terror by Spencer Ackerman, showing how the post-9/11 “War on Terror” built a permanent national security state with mass surveillance, warrantless wiretaps, secret kill lists, and preemptive detention. Both parties enabled this system: under Bush, the PATRIOT Act, Guantánamo, and aggressive counterterrorism policies expanded state power; Obama preserved drone strikes, surveillance programs, and the bureaucratic machinery of indefinite detention. This infrastructure allowed Trump to militarize immigration enforcement, empower ICE in Minneapolis and nationwide raids, separate families at the border, and use crisis rhetoric and fear-based governance to treat migrants as existential threats while consolidating political power