The Flight 93 Convention

In 2016, an anonymous author described the battle between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as the “Flight 93 election.” In dark, urgent terms, the article argued that a Hillary Clinton victory would change America so irrevocably that conservatives needed to think of themselves as the passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11—the passengers who chose to bring down the plane to save the U.S. Capitol from al-Qaeda hijackers.

Electing Trump represented the last chance for conservatives to prevent America’s transformation into an oppressive leftist state that “few of us have yet imagined in our darkest moments,” the author wrote, explicitly connecting that specter to the prospect of racial change. “The ceaseless importation of Third World foreigners with no tradition of, taste for, or experience in liberty” creates an electorate “less traditionally American with every cycle.”

With those stakes, the author insisted, conservatives must mobilize to prevent Clinton’s victory with the same commitment demonstrated by the plane passengers who had sacrificed themselves. “Charge the cockpit or you die,” the article reads. “You may die anyway. You—or the leader of your party—may make it into the cockpit and not know how to fly or land the plane. There are no guarantees. Except one: if you don’t try, death is certain.”

That doomsaying author, Michael Anton, ultimately joined Trump’s White House in a senior post on the National Security Council. And four years later, the president has convened what can only