National Unity in Extremis: Post-9/11 American Coalescence and Its Philosophical Underpinnings

written by a member of the WCB

In the annals of American political history, few phenomena warrant as much scholarly consideration as the remarkable dissolution of partisan boundaries in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. The sight of Americans of all ideological persuasions rallying behind President George W. Bush—his approval ratings soaring to an unprecedented 90%—provides a compelling case study in the metaphysics of national identity during existential crisis.

This transcendence of political division wasn't merely a statistical anomaly but represented something profoundly revelatory about the American character. When the towers fell, the artificial constructs of partisan identification momentarily collapsed as well, revealing the more fundamental substrate of shared national consciousness that typically remains dormant during periods of relative tranquility.

What philosophical principles explain this remarkable coalescence? First, we must recognize that external threats function as clarifying agents in the national psyche. The stark binary opposition between civilization and barbarism, so vividly illustrated on that September morning, rendered internal political distinctions temporarily inconsequential. Conservative and progressive Americans alike recognized the fundamental distinction between a civilization that, despite its imperfections, values human dignity, and forces that sought its annihilation.

Second, crisis reveals the hierarchy of human commitments that typically remains obscured during peacetime prosperity. In moments of existential threat, Americans rediscover that their disagreements about tax policy or regulatory frameworks are subordinate to their shared commitment to the constitutional order itself. This recognition—that we argue vehemently precisely because we share fundamental commitments to the American experiment—emerges with striking clarity when that experiment faces external threat.

The phenomenon also illuminates something essential about human nature that transcends political ideology. Both conservative and progressive Americans harbor an innate understanding that social cooperation requires leadership during crisis. The presidential office, as the embodiment of executive authority and national symbolism, becomes the natural focal point for this cooperative impulse. President Bush's decisive early rhetoric—"I can hear you, the rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon"—provided precisely the unifying narrative that the collective unconscious sought.

For young conservative men, this historical episode offers a profound insight: beneath the superficial polarization that dominates contemporary discourse lies a deeper stratum of shared American identity. This is not to suggest that policy disagreements are trivial—indeed, they reflect genuine philosophical divergences about the proper ordering of society. Rather, it reminds us that these disagreements occur within a shared framework of constitutional governance and national identity.

The post-9/11 unity also demonstrates that Americans possess an intuitive understanding of civilization's fragility—a core conservative insight. When confronted with forces that threatened not particular policies but the civilizational inheritance itself, Americans instinctively recognized what was at stake and responded with appropriate seriousness of purpose.

As we navigate our current era of heightened partisan division, the post-9/11 moment reminds us that national unity remains possible—not through the abandonment of principle, but through the recognition that our political opponents are fellow citizens with whom we share fundamental commitments to the American experiment, even as we disagree about its proper expression. This insight offers not a facile call to compromise, but rather a more profound recognition that our most heated political debates occur within a shared civilizational framework that deserves our collective defense.