Terrorism and American values 25 years after 9/11

Reflecting on the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, a discussion emerges regarding whether terrorism constitutes an existential threat to the United States.

In a past conversation during his second term, Barack Obama argued that Islamic terrorism was a chronic and manageable risk rather than an existential one. He posited that terrorism would only become an existential threat if Americans responded by abandoning their core values and constitutional protections in a state of panic. This perspective suggests that while extremist groups cannot destroy the nation, the country could destroy itself by turning on one another and discarding its democratic principles.