{"id":10471,"date":"2026-09-19T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/?p=10471"},"modified":"2026-09-19T08:50:28","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T23:50:28","slug":"%ef%bd%9cviewpoint%ef%bd%9c9-11-and-the-fading-of-the-american-dreamdr-roberto-savio-president-of-the-other-news-and-a-founder-of-ips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/sdgs-2\/%ef%bd%9cviewpoint%ef%bd%9c9-11-and-the-fading-of-the-american-dreamdr-roberto-savio-president-of-the-other-news-and-a-founder-of-ips\/","title":{"rendered":"\uff5cViewpoint\uff5c9\/11 and the Fading of the American Dream"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Roberto Savio<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rome (INPS Japan\/ The Other News) – <\/strong>On September 11, 2001, I was in New York. At the time, I travelled there frequently because I had a consultancy contract with the United Nations.\uff5cJAPANESE<\/a>\uff5c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That morning, still suffering from jet lag after my flight from Italy, I overslept and woke up at around 11 a.m. I was staying at a hotel close to the United Nations headquarters.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Roberto
Roberto Savio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

When I went down to the lobby, I was struck by the extraordinary agitation around me. Staff and guests alike seemed deeply shaken. I tried to speak to a bellboy I knew, but he ran past without answering. At the reception desk, everyone was on the telephone and nobody paid any attention to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, someone I knew said: \u201cThey\u2019ve attacked the Twin Towers!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And she too hurried away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My journalistic instinct immediately took over. I went outside, intending to take a taxi to the scene. But the street was almost deserted. There were no cars, and the few people I could see were running, probably trying to get home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I did the only sensible thing left to do: I watched television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The images were clear and horrifying. But the anchors were more bewildered than I had ever seen them. It was obvious that this was not an accident but an attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But by whom? And why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My recollection of the CBS and NBC coverage is above all one of profound bewilderment: America had helped so many countries around the world, so why was such hatred being directed against it? And now that the Cold War was over, where was this hatred coming from?<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

On the day of the attacks, and again the following day, New York almost ceased to function as a city. The streets emptied. Shops, restaurants and supermarkets were closed. Public transport was severely disrupted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At my hotel, many members of staff could not get to work, so managers improvised sandwiches. It was among the very little food they could offer the guests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People stayed at home, trying to absorb the shock, avoiding an unpredictable danger and watching television continuously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The horrifying images were everywhere: people falling from the towers, office workers and firefighters covered in ash. Only gradually did the figures and information that could give some measure of what had happened begin to emerge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in those days, the American Dream vanished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United States had emerged from the Second World War as the world’s pre-eminent power. During the Cold War it faced the Soviet Union as a rival, but for many Americans their country represented freedom, democracy and prosperity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the United States that had helped rebuild Europe after the war. Europe, historically the centre of the Western world, reconstructed itself within a post-war international order built largely around its alliance with the United States. American development assistance also played an important role in many parts of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this image of America had grown larger in the collective imagination of its own citizens, creating a considerable gap between perception and reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surveys around that period showed that ordinary Americans believed their government was spending far more on foreign aid than it actually was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dominant feeling after 9\/11 was disbelief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Americans had read about wars, massacres and violence in newspapers and watched them on television. Even when American soldiers were fighting, the wars were usually taking place far away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The American Dream and the widening gap between perception and reality.<\/strong> From post-war reconstruction and Cold War leadership to global development assistance, the United States came to see itself as a guarantor of freedom, democracy and prosperity. Yet even before 9\/11, a growing disconnect between Americans\u2019 perceptions of their country\u2019s role in the world and the underlying realities was becoming apparent. | Image: INPS Japan<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Of course, it would not be correct to say that the United States had never been attacked before. But for most Americans, an attack of this magnitude in the heart of a major American city had been almost beyond imagination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact that it had happened shook confidence in the ability of the state to guarantee its citizens’ security. Combined with the wars and the political and economic upheavals that followed, this distrust gradually deepened and became one of the forces shaping American politics today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To analyse properly how the American Dream gradually faded would require far more space than is available here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, I would like to follow some of the threads that gradually obscured the America we knew and helped create the America we see today, symbolised by Trump and Musk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have to begin by going back to the 1980s. A series of changes during that decade had profound consequences not only for the world but also for the United States itself.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
10\/23\/1981 Reagan Thatcher Boigny Sattar Benjedid Genscher Trudeau Portillo Fahd Pahr Guerreiro Ziyang Marcos Kraigher Nyerere Suzuki Burnham Mitterrand Gandhi Shagari Falldin Campins Waldheim Cancun Summit Class Photo of Heads of State in Cancun on Sheraton Hotel Beach<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

One symbolic moment was the North-South Summit held in Canc\u00fan, Mexico, in 1981.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was in charge of communications at the summit and therefore had an opportunity to observe it from the inside. Many of the leading political figures of the period were there, from Indira Gandhi to Fran\u00e7ois Mitterrand, Julius Nyerere and Pierre Trudeau, and many argued for stronger international cooperation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ronald Reagan, then at the beginning of his presidency, brought a distinctly different approach. As I understood his message from inside the meeting, he placed greater emphasis on the responsibility and choices of individual countries rather than entrusting policy to comprehensive negotiations centred on the United Nations, and saw free markets and individual initiative as the engines of development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the 1980s, a profound change was also taking place in thinking about the world economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Policies emphasising market liberalisation, privatisation, deregulation and fiscal discipline gained influence. In 1989, the economist John Williamson coined the term \u201cWashington Consensus\u201d to describe a set of policies that he believed were broadly shared among Washington-based institutions in their approach to Latin America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The expression subsequently acquired a meaning much broader than Williamson’s original definition and came to be widely associated with neoliberal policies that placed increasing emphasis on market forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As globalisation and international competition accelerated, many companies moved manufacturing to countries where labour was cheaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the United States, millions of manufacturing jobs that had sustained the middle class disappeared. Particularly in rural areas and the old industrial regions, a sense of having been economically left behind accumulated over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then came 9\/11.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Picture:
Picture: Iraq War – Delta Force of Task Force 20 alongside troops of 3rd Battalion | Credit: Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The United States fought in Afghanistan for twenty years before withdrawing in 2021. In the meantime, it invaded Iraq in 2003, withdrawing its main combat forces in 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Iraq, the breakdown of state institutions, sectarian conflict and the activities of al-Qaeda-linked organisations, combined later with the war in Syria and other factors, created the conditions in which ISIS was able to emerge and expand. Instability across the wider Middle East deepened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During this period, Americans were again confronted with the fact that their country was not invincible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The world’s strongest military power, which had supposedly overcome the trauma of Vietnam, discovered that even overwhelming military force could not easily create political stability or a sustainable order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Brown University’s Costs of War project, the cumulative cost to the United States of the post-9\/11 wars and related counterterrorism policies, including Afghanistan and Iraq, has reached approximately eight trillion dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in my view, the decisive blow to the American Dream came several years later, with the financial crisis of 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And once again, by coincidence, I found myself close to the events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For years, financial deregulation and increasingly sophisticated financial engineering had encouraged the expansion of ever more complex and risky transactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1999, under President Bill Clinton, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act removed major restrictions associated with the 1933 Banking Act \u2014 commonly known through its Glass-Steagall provisions \u2014 that had helped maintain the separation between commercial and investment banking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was certainly not, by itself, the cause of the 2008 financial crisis. The integration and deregulation of financial services had already been advancing before 1999. But the legislation became one symbol of that longer transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2008, the bubble built around the housing market and complex financial products burst. Lehman Brothers, one of the symbols of Wall Street, collapsed, and the crisis spread from the United States across the world.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Photo:
Photo: Poverty in America Documentary 2017 on YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Millions of Americans suffered serious damage to their homes, savings and employment. Retirement savings were also placed at risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, from the 1980s onward, the bargaining power of trade unions had declined, while many workers experienced long periods of wage stagnation and increasingly insecure employment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many people found themselves in precarious or part-time work, and holding more than one job simply to make ends meet became increasingly common.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A conviction began to spread that the political and economic elites did not understand the reality of ordinary people’s lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Immigrants increasingly became a target for this frustration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey take our jobs.\u201d \u201cThey put pressure on our schools and hospitals.\u201d \u201cThey bring crime.\u201d Such arguments acquired growing political force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This sense of frustration and anger became an essential part of the background to what would later become the Trump phenomenon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But politics was not the only factor. Religion, too, has played an important role in the transformation of American society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evangelical Christians, particularly conservative evangelicals, constitute a major political force in the United States. Among some of them, religious values have become closely intertwined with political ideas that emphasise individual success, personal responsibility and limited government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some conservative evangelicals also strongly support Israel, in part because of interpretations of biblical prophecy and the End Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within this environment, the nationalism and sovereignism promoted by figures such as Steve Bannon also gained ground. More recently, powerful figures from the technology world, including Elon Musk, have exercised direct political influence, strengthening anti-establishment currents that cannot always be understood through the traditional division between left and right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conservative Catholicism has also acquired greater political visibility, with Vice-President J.D. Vance becoming one of its most prominent figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a time when many people face economic and social insecurity, extraordinary wealth has become concentrated in the hands of a very small number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That contrast itself has contributed to deepening distrust of the existing political and economic system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Religion,
Religion, politics and inequality in a changing America. Conservative evangelical Christianity and Catholicism have become increasingly intertwined with political currents emphasizing nationalism and national sovereignty, while powerful technology figures have gained greater political influence. At the same time, the widening contrast between economic insecurity and extraordinary concentrations of wealth has deepened distrust of the country\u2019s political and economic system. | Image: INPS Japan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then came the communications revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Roberto
Roberto Savio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Facebook appeared in 2004, Reddit in 2005 and Twitter in 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suddenly, millions of Americans could communicate directly with one another without going through the traditional mass media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I myself was once an enthusiastic supporter of the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when I heard the idea expressed that what mattered now was not what you knew, but knowing where to look, I became deeply concerned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you find something but do not absorb it as knowledge of your own, does it not simply run off you like water from a goose’s feathers, leaving nothing behind?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The larger problem was that the major services of the internet developed not as a common good but as businesses designed to make a profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an environment flooded with information, the challenge became how to attract people’s attention and keep them in front of a screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, information that was sensational, emotionally provocative or surprising acquired a natural advantage in the competition for attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

False information, distorted information and conspiracy theories exploited this environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ideas that in the past might have circulated only among small groups could now be amplified by the enormous loudspeaker of the internet and spread across society almost instantaneously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Political and ideological extremists proved particularly adept at exploiting its power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More recently, there has also been growing concern about isolation among young people and increasing dependence on the online world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of interacting directly with other people, some spend long periods in a virtual world, and now some are beginning to use artificial intelligence almost as a friend or adviser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This raises new questions for a country with a powerful tradition of placing the individual before society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"An
An endless stream of disconnected information can make today\u2019s global crises appear overwhelming. The Global Citizen Handbook argues that understanding the connections between them is the first step toward informed citizenship. Image:INPS Japan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Political ideas that identify the reduction of the state with freedom, regard taxation as excessive interference with the fruits of individual labour, and view social policies such as public healthcare with suspicion as forms of \u201csocialism\u201d continue to exercise considerable influence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, American society is also producing a reaction against these trends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In New York, Zohran Mamdani, who identifies as a democratic socialist, has become mayor, while elsewhere politicians openly advocating progressive policies have also emerged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this has been accompanied by intense political polarisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Political opponents are increasingly described not simply as people with different views but as threats to the country or society itself. A path back towards national consensus is difficult to see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump frequently denounces Democrats and their policies as \u201ccommunist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Politics, which should be a mechanism for reconciling different interests and views within society, has also become a powerful instrument of division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The future does not appear to offer a simple return to the America of the old dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When bin Laden destroyed the Twin Towers, he could hardly have imagined the long and complex chain of consequences that his attack would set in motion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the legacy of 9\/11 cannot be measured only in wars and politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also embedded in the small routines of everyday life that we no longer even recognise as unusual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beginning with 9\/11, aviation security was progressively tightened. Later attempted terrorist attacks brought additional measures: removing shoes and belts, restrictions on liquids, scanners and increasingly elaborate security procedures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, nobody is surprised by the need to arrive at an airport well before departure, stand in long queues and pass through security checks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For younger generations, this seems almost like a law of nature. They do not know the world \u201cbefore.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a time when one could arrive much closer to departure, check in and proceed to the gate with nothing resembling today’s security procedures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That world changed on a September morning, and it never returned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps this is terrorism’s quietest victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terrorism did not only change the way we think. It changed our habits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it made those changes so much a part of everyday life that we can barely remember that there was once another way of doing things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We must also consider that this mechanism did not remain confined to the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Against a different historical and social background, Europe too has experienced deepening conflicts over globalisation, market forces, immigration, national sovereignty and distrust of established political institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Maastricht Treaty, signed in 1992, laid one of the principal foundations of today’s European Union.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Flag
Flag of European Union<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The EU subsequently developed policies extending well beyond economic integration into social policy, human rights, the environment and many other areas. Yet the question of how much authority should be shared between member states and European institutions has never disappeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the contrary, political forces placing renewed emphasis on national sovereignty and control of borders have gained ground in a number of countries, reopening fundamental questions about the future of European integration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results of forthcoming elections in major European countries will therefore have important consequences for the future direction of the European Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If sovereignist forces continue to gain ground in these countries, Europeans who have regarded Trump as an aberration may find themselves, ironically, moving in the very direction he has encouraged \u2014 weakening the cohesion of the European Union from within.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roberto Savio<\/strong> \u2013 the compass of OtherNews<\/a> \u2013 is a journalist, communication expert, political commentator, activist for social<\/a> and climate justice<\/a> and advocate of global governance<\/a>. In 1964, he founded Inter Press Service (IPS)<\/a>, of which he was Director-General for many years. He is Deputy Director of the Scientific Council of the New Policy Forum (formerly the World Policy Forum), founded by Mikhail Gorbachev and also a member of the International Committee of the World Social Forum (WSF). <\/pre>\n\n\n\n
INPS Japan<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Related articles:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Understanding an Interconnected World<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Roberto Savio Rome (INPS Japan\/ The Other News) – On September 11, 2001, I was in New York. At the time, I travelled there frequently because I had a consultancy contract with the United Nations.\uff5cJAPANESE\uff5c That morning, still suffering from jet lag after my flight from Italy, I overslept and woke up at around […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,16,39,32,3,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-goal10","category-news","category-north-america","category-regions","category-sdgs-2","category-viewpoints"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10471"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10490,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10471\/revisions\/10490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}