'Downward spiral': US 'on road to MAGA nightmare' long before Trump

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Republican National Midterm Convention in Dallas, Texas, U.S., September 9, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci

Economist Paul Krugman has long been a scathing critic of President Donald Trump and the far-right MAGA movement. But in a Substack column published on the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Krugman argues that the United States was "on the road to" a "MAGA nightmare" long before Trump.

"When the Twin Towers fell, it seemed to many like a second Pearl Harbor — a day of infamy, but one that would bring the nation together," Krugman explains. "And if you believed that, the state of the nation today must seem utterly shocking. But the truth is that the seeds of where we are now had already been planted well before 9/11. There was an initial façade of national unity, but the ruthless political — and financial — exploitation of the attack began almost immediately … The past two years have been worse than almost anyone could have imagined, but the truth is that we were already well on the road to this MAGA nightmare on the day the towers fell."

Krugman continues, "It hasn't been an inexorable downward spiral. The election of our first Black president really was a significant moment — the truth is that while there are plenty of haters, overall, we are a better, more tolerant society than we were in 2001. The expansion of healthcare under (President Barack) Obama wasn't just good policy, it represented real moral progress."

Krugman was a columnist for the New York Times when al-Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. And he highlights a Times column published on November 21, 2001 — roughly two and one-half months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks — and headlined "Reckonings: An Alternate Reality."

In that column, the economist argued that although "the vast majority of Americans" were "resolute and generous" after the attacks, many "politicians and businessmen" were "behaving badly" and exploiting 9/11 for their own selfish ends.

With Trumpism, Krugman warns, the United States' dark side came to the forefront.

"Although there has been a concerted effort to smear the policymakers who responded to COVID, the truth is that we managed the economic fallout from that crisis very well, and the rapid development of a vaccine was a scientific and medical miracle," Krugman writes. "But the evil now running wild in America didn't begin when Trump descended that escalator. It has been building for decades."

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