I don’t know about 9/11, but I feel like the US has been creeping towards another Oklahoma City for some time now.
I think it definitely will, but it will probably be carried out by domestic terrorist Nazis er uh, I mean "white nationalists"
I get that 9/11 is a big cultural event for you guys, but you also have mass shootings like every other day..
9/11 killed more in one day than mass shootings have in the last 20+ years. https://www.statista.com/statistics/811504/mass-shooting-victims-in-the-united-states-by-fatalities-and-injuries/
Tangentially, Covid was a 9/11 per day or more for like 2 years. It's around a couple 9/11s a week now.
That's entirely the point. Instead of small problems that are consistent and easy to ignore, it was a singular event that's much easier to focus on. That's why so many politicians used it as an opportunity to consolidate power and enact draconian legal protections.
9/11 wasn't just "bad thing happen" it was "big bad to distract from small bad".
In Europe we've been ignoring the real issues with excuses for a long time. Now we see a lot of discontent and a political shift right. That's not gonna solve anything, but it's a symptom or result of not facing the problems we have.
A majority of Americans want stricter gun laws, and that's been consistent for quite a few years.
We also have a dysfunctional political system that prevents popular ideas from getting anywhere, but we're not really unique in that I suppose.
Yes we have a serious problem with that. I'm not sure what that has to do with a large threat like 9/11 though. We lost 3000 Americans in a day. We can discuss that without having to bring in every problem at once.
Gonna be civil unrest. I really don't see a different outcome with the right wing screeching hatred 24/7.
Pretty broad question.
A massive terror attack? I consider that unlikely.
A generation-defining historical event? We had one in Covid.
A mass casualty event? Again, Covid.
An excuse to wage war on another country, remove American rights, consolidate government power, and enrich certain people? I think that's quite possible. It worked extremely well for that purpose once.
(note I'm not one of those "9/11 was an inside job" conspiracy nuts, I just think there were some very smart, very greedy, and very evil people who seized the opportunity of 9/11 to effect the awful stuff)
at its peak (which lasted for months), covid killed more people daily than 9/11 did, and noone cared.
so the question is more about whether people blow up some highrise buildings that will cause chaos and despair.
I think it’s more likely that we will see smaller scale attacks by domestic terrorists, ranging from mass shootings to something on the scale of a Timothy McVeigh. I can also see a probability of a return to a 1960s/1970s level of political violence and assassinations.
I think those are more likely than a large scale attack from foreign terrorists.
I think we’ll have an environmental “9/11” moment fairly soon where a major American city gets flooded and the waters don’t recede and large parts of the city will need to migrate elsewhere. There will be a lot of handwringing, and news channels going, “How could this have happened?”, and stuff like that. Similar to Katrina I think, but it’ll affect more white people this time, so that’ll make it worse.
As for terrorist attacks, yeah that shit will keep happening, maybe not at the scale of planes crashing into stuff, but there will probably be significant, mass-casualty events I should think.
Maybe a natural disaster that causes civil unrest which triggers a domestic terrorism event.
Bush isn't president anymore, and there's already a reason to justify another two decade war.
In any case, theres domestic terrorism happening every day in the US including Trump's Jan 6, and the twice a week school shootings.
Twice a week? According to this, there were 346 school shootings in the US in 2023. Almost enough for one per day. Then remember holidays and the winter and summer breaks...
I think this stat only counts K-12 schools too, not colleges.
Oh god, why do I do this to myself...fuck, ok, here we go
deep breath
Like almost all gun statistics that are shared in left-leaning media, this one is grossly misleading.
Casting a wide net, the database captures not only incidents in which a gun is fired on school property, but also those in which a bullet hits school property, whether or not school is in session. Incidents in which a gun is brandished but not fired and those in which there are no victims are also included.
So in this case, a "school shooting" can include incidents where there was literally not a single shot fired at all by anyone. A kid bringing his parents' gun to school and showing it to his friends is counted as a "school shooting".
I hate that you're getting downvoted. This is good information. I appreciate the contribution.
People are not rational when it comes to guns, abortion, anything to do with children, etc. Contributing information is usually a bad idea and roundly rejected.
Where did the OP say it was fine? It looks like they simply corrected misinformation. There is no need to poison the discussion.
Yes, I love school shootings!
Seriously what the fuck kind of question is that. Think about it. What is wrong with you.
Ignoring domestic terrorism, an outside attack to me seems most likely in terms of cyberattacks on weak infrastructure (utilities, signals, etc.)
I recently read a book by a retired agent about the effort against terrorism. If I remember correctly, terrorism has changed substantially since 9/11. The author described that terrorist nowadays are still organised more or less centrally but have a focus on smaller activities. I remember them describing them as "Nike terrorists" because of Niles slogan "just do it". The smaller and more isolated activities are apparently much harder to detect and counter than massive attempts like 9/11
Yes!
As someone who is not American, it's so obvious that your shit is a bit fucked. Everyone is so deeply unhappy, it's being channelled into political partisanship.
Honestly I don't think there's any way to get back on track without some kind of event that galvanises you.
If COVID didn't galvanize us, what possibly could?? I really can't think of anything short of a military attack directly on the homeland.
Probably a really good point.
I was thinking that a more imminent or physical threat would be "galvanising" but then, the way information gets all twisted around these days, I don't think such an event really exists.
You mean an event blown way out of proportion to justify draconian overreach? The Republicans trot one of those out literally every week.
All the reasons those guys did it are still there, nothing has changed yet so maybe? Hacking a plane got harder though.
Just changing the door on the plane made them basically impossible to hijack. The only real opening is to rush an open door.
Passengers are now also in the fight back mode rather than comply and let authorities negotiate ransom.
We Americans are gonna be real confused on November 18th when the rest of the world is like "bro we told you the exact date this would happen"
I think the likelihood of another major terrorist attack happening on US soil is drastically higher now than 30 years ago. But thats due to a lot of factors, primarily increased political hostility and increased population density.
Some external group doing a terrorist attack? Nah, they don't need to. The US can attack themselves easily and will. With the coming high court ruling coming about Trump being withheld from voting slips (correct term? Not being alowed to be on the list during election) will be a huge thing. Either the very conservative judges he appointed will rule he incited a riot and should not be allowed in office again (according to the intention of article 14 of the US constitution, which those judges say they adhere), or they will say it's not up to us.
In the 1st case, the Trump adepts will start the 2nd civil war, in the 2nd case, who knows. Leaving it to the states could result in problems in some.
However you look at it, the USA is on it's way to a massive implosion. With a destabalised political system like that, which state needs enemies. No real democratic system has only 2 parties.
Sure hope not. I’m hoping these are the bad times and things will get better once consequences occur. I know it’s wishful thinking. If something bad did happen I expect it would be domestic, right wing as most of them are.