the most unhinged part of krugman's claim that "americans took 9/11 calmly" is that an entire respectable elite intellectual movement was spawned out of it based on anti-muslim resentment led by "new atheists" like bill maher, as brilliantly exposed here

krugman: "americans took 9/11 calmly, there wasn't a mass outbreak of anti-muslim sentiment"

meanwhile every week on liberals' favorite political show:

islamophobic racism was so normalized that not only did it not hurt your career if you indulged in it: it *boosted* your career. maher's ratings skyrocketed with that shit. sam harris built an entire career off "thought experiments" about nuking muslims in the middle east

and that's still the norm today. jake tapper regularly indulges in racist islamophobic garbage, spreading grotesque lies about linda sarsour, ilhan omar and rashida tlaib like he's competing with tucker carlson, yet he remains a beloved figure of liberals, however "woke"

here's chomsky discussing the prevalence of anti-arab and palestinian racism and islamophobia throughout society, including in liberal circles

and a more recent discussion of islamophobic racism in the 9/11 era as represented by that grotesque piece of propaganda "american sniper", which glorified the crypto-nazi mass murderer chris kyle (who is now fortunately dead)

btw glenn's article on the racist islamophobia of "new atheist" creeps is worth reading. he was one of the few people at the time with a big platform to call them out, and I remember being very grateful for that as our voices were silenced (or "cancelled") https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/03/sam-harris-muslim-animus