I was 19 and in college in America when 9/11 happened and the short answer is that Americans viewed this as a direct attack on their soil like Pearl Harbor in W

I was 19 and in college in America when 9/11 happened and the short answer is that Americans viewed this as a direct attack on their soil like Pearl Harbor in WW2. People wanted to get revenge and hold the attackers accountable. I knew people my age that saw the attack and almost instantly dropped their careers and joined the military. Enlistments saw a huge bump in numbers IIRC. Everyone knew that eventually America would go after the attackers and a lot of people felt like it was their duty to help. And people that couldn't directly help felt like they had to do whatever they could to show support--the 'freedom fries' thing came from that feeling. Politically it was a weird climate. We were just a year past the 2000 election--one of the most divisive and contested elections we had ever seen (Gore vs. Bush, where the election effectively came down to a supreme court decision on Florida ballot counting). Many people viewed Bush as a failson who just golfed and didn't know how to run a governor's office, much less a country. 9/11 instantly put him in the spotlight and for better or worse his reputation was vastly improved by showing some leadership in a time of crisis. It was very, very difficult to criticize him or his lead up to a war against Iraq (even when all signs pointed at the war being illegitimate and unrelated to the attacks).