Foreign policy played almost no role in the 2000 election, but the crisis of September 11, 2001, produced a transformational foreign policy. A nonstate actor’s attack on the homeland killed more Americans than did the Japanese government’s attack at Pearl Harbor and had a profound effect on President Bush, his followers, and American public opinion. In 2001 George W. Bush started as a limited realist with little interest in foreign policy but became transformational in his objectives after the crisis. Like Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Truman, Bush 43 turned to the rhetoric of democracy to rally his followers in a time of crisis.
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