The force of American history stood with George Bush as he prepared to address Congress on September 20, 2001. Its darkest passages, when presidents who spoke from that stage branded entire masses of people irredeemable savages, chattel, and three-fifths human, lurked like shadows behind him. Vile terms like "enemy aliens" and "enemy race" would resurface; terms used to place people in internment camps decades earlier would be wielded again.

XREF: Connects to the historical pattern of dehumanizing language in American presidential addresses, from slavery-era rhetoric to WWII-era internment framing, and how it recurs in post-9/11 discourse.

Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamopho…, loc. 211