Subtle Tools

The Dismantling of American Democracy from the War on Terror to Donald Trump

Karen J. Greenberg

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780691216577
  9780691215839
• eBook ISBN:
  9780691216560
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Civil Rights in Law
• Index: Politics & International Relations

How policies forged after September 11 were weaponized under Trump and turned on American democracy itself

In the wake of the September 11 terror attacks, the American government implemented a wave of overt policies to fight the nation's enemies. Unseen and undetected by the public, however, another set of tools was brought to bear on the domestic front. In this riveting book, one of today's leading experts on the US security state shows how these "subtle tools" imperiled the very foundations of democracy, from the separation of powers and transparency in government to adherence to the Constitution.

Taking readers from Ground Zero to the Capitol insurrection, Karen Greenberg describes the subtle tools that were forged under George W. Bush in the name of security: imprecise language, bureaucratic confusion, secrecy, and the bypassing of procedural and legal norms. While the power and legacy of these tools lasted into the Obama years, reliance on them increased exponentially in the Trump era, both in the fight against terrorism abroad and in battles closer to home. Greenberg discusses how the Trump administration weaponized these tools to separate families at the border, suppress Black Lives Matter protests, and attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Revealing the deeper consequences of the war on terror, Subtle Tools paints a troubling portrait of an increasingly undemocratic America where disinformation, xenophobia, and disdain for the law became the new norm, and where the subtle tools of national security threatened democracy itself.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Introduction: The Subtle Tools
• 1. Ground Zero
• 2. The Patriot Act
• 3. Homeland
• 4. President Trump and the Subtle Tools
• 5. The Muslim Ban
• 6. Crisis at the Border
• 7. The Deadly Strike: The Killing of General Soleimani
• 8. The Black Lives Matter Protests: Militarizing the Home Front
• 9. The 2020 Elections
• Conclusion: Biden’s Ground Zero
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Index