Dutton eager to exploit slaughter and hate 9/11-style — but he’s not alone

In the 9/11 mindset, there’s always an existential crisis and a need for action that overrides protections. Now we’re in it in Canberra and Sydney.

NSW Premier Chris Minns and federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton (Images: AAP)

In what we might call the 9/11 worldview — the mindset that drove politicians, the media and policymakers through the long years of the failed war on terrorism — extremism isn’t just an enemy, it’s a way of thinking.

In that worldview, there’s always a crisis. The threat is always existential. The stakes are always high, the danger is always imminent, the demand for action urgent and overdue, existing laws are always inadequate (no matter how rigorously strengthened in the past), any pause for thought is fatal, any impediment to the most aggressive action possible must be overridden — and anyone who disagrees is at best soft on terrorism, or perhaps an enabler of terrorism through weak-kneed liberalism and self-hatred.

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