21St Century

The 21st Century began in 2001 (though many thought it started in 2000), with a new President George W. Bush being sworn in on Jan. 20, 2001. That election was the most contested since 1876, when Rutherford was declared the winner over Tilden based on the Compromise of 1877 to end Reconstruction. Bush defeated his opponent, Al Gore, by a few hundred votes in the decisive state of Florida but it took the U.S. Supreme Court (Bush v. Gore) to intervene to stop the Democrats from recounting and reevaluating ballots in an attempt to declare Gore the winner.

President George W. Bush described himself as a "compassionate conservative," which meant expanding government to give more "entitlements" (handouts). He did slightly cut taxes, but let government spending increase beyond control.

Less than eight months into the presidency of George W. Bush, on September 11, 2001 ("9/11"), 19 Saudi Arabians hijacked four planes (about five hijackers per plane), and flew them in suicide missions into targets. Two flew into the World Trade Centers in southern Manhattan, one for each tower, causing a massive fire at about 9am in the upper floors of the towers (see diagram at right). Unbeknownst to the terrorists, many New Yorkers do not fully arrive to work until about 9:30am; the building was only partially full and many below the impact were able to evacuate. But many could not evacuate; some were trapped above the point of impact and fled to the roof that soon became too hot to stand upon; and hundreds of firefighters courageously entered the building to try to save who they could. Within an hour both towers collapsed from the fires, killing nearly 3,000 people (including those who died on the airplanes). A third hijacked plane went to D.C., probably seeking the White House as its target. But the White House is not easy to see from the air, and the plane crashed into the much easier-to-find large Pentagon military building, killing 66. By then the passengers on the fourth hijacked plane learned of what happened to others by making calls to loved ones on their cell phones. They fought back against the hijackers, preventing it from ever reaching its target of D.C., but died when the plane crashed in a Pennsylvania field during the struggle. Ironically and tragically, pilots who regularly carried guns on flights for self-defense had been disarmed by the government just a few months earlier, leaving all pilots defenseless against this attack. A program to rearm pilots after this attack proceeded slowly, amid opposition by proponents of gun control.

9/11 was the deadliest attack ever on American soil, even deadlier than the attack on Pearl Harbor. President Bush addressed a joint session of Congress and the entire nation, vowing to hold the perpetrators responsible. Quickly blame was pinned on Osama bin Laden, who was in Afghanistan leading the terrorist group "Al Qaeda." Bush demanded that the Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan at the time, expel him from its country. The Taliban refused, and Bush ordered American troops to invade Afghanistan to defeat Al Qaeda and look for bin Laden, who was not found until he was reportedly killed by U.S. Navy SEALS in May 2011. During the 2011 invasion of Afghanistan, American soldiers captured terrorists, including an American later charged with treason and sentenced to 30 years in jail; some terrorists were held at Guantanamo Bay, and hundreds are still being held there a decade later while awaiting trial.

Congress quickly passed the Patriot Act of 2001, which authorized extensive phone and email surveillance of Americans possibly connected with terrorism, and authorized deportation or detention of suspected terrorists. The internal surveillance and fighting in Afghanistan became known as the "War on Terrorism," which began in 2001 and continues to this day.

More controversial was President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003, after its dictator Saddam Hussein refused to disarm and refused to cooperate with inspections of its nuclear program. Some feared he was developing "weapons of mass destruction," though no hard evidence of that has ever been found. More plausible is that Saddam Hussein was harboring or funding terrorists, and there is no doubt that his regime was brutal to Iraqis themselves. Americans captured Baghdad, Iraq's capital, remarkably quickly, but actually the enemy had gone "underground" to engage in terrorist attacks against our troops for the next several years, possibly aided by Iran. In 2007, President Bush approved "the surge" to stop the terrorist attacks, and it was remarkably successful. American troops remained fighting in Iraq until 2010, when President Barack Obama pulled them out. After the American military left, defenseless Christian churches suffered from horrible violence against them.

President Bush was unsuccessful at immigration "reform" that would have granted amnesty to millions of illegal aliens in the nation, and given them a path to American citizenship. President Bush did support and sign into law the "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001," which allows students of public schools that repeatedly do poorly on mandatory tests to transfer to another public school that has a better record on these tests. But the liberal Senator Ted Kennedy's staff wrote most of the bill, and before long both conservatives and liberals were criticizing many of its burdensome regulations on the school system. The Act does seem to have improved accountability of public schools slightly, but does not generate new alternatives. Alert political activism by homeschoolers resulted in adding a provision to protect us against being subjected to the mandatory public school tests; any state that attempts to do that (and there was legislation in New Jersey to require that) will automatically lose millions of dollars in federal funding. Homeschooling continued to grow.

In November 2008, Barack Obama was elected president and the Democratic Party won large majorities in Congress. They pushed into law the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," also known by its critics as "ObamaCare". This law imposes a penalty on working adults who do not purchase health insurance, making it the first time that Congress has penalized people unless they bought something. There are many legal challenges to the law and Republicans vow to repeal it if they win back control of Congress and the presidency. In 2010, Republicans did win a landslide in the House of Representatives, but could not win a majority in the Senate. In 2012, the chances of Republicans also winning back the Senate are high (note that only a third of the Senate is elected every two years, while every seat in the House is elected).

In 2009 the Democrats enacted a "Stimulus" economic packages, which consisted of hundreds of billions of dollars in new federal spending, throwing the nation into enormous debt. Republicans have made this a political issue and seek cuts in federal spending and the enormous federal debt.