9/11—25 Years Later: Objectivism, Islamic Totalitarianism, and America’s Crisis of Ideas

Live Sep 2, 2026  | Yaron Brook Show

(Season 12, Episode 145)

The Meaning of 9/11—25 Years Later: Objectivism, Islamic Totalitarianism, and America’s Crisis of Ideas with Elan Journo, Onkar Ghate & Yaron Brook

Watch now: https://youtube.com/live/FuMxHBFkwH8

"Twenty-five years after 9/11 — did America win the war, or did it just forget what the war was even about?"

America didn't just fail to defeat the enemy that attacked it on 9/11. It refused to even name that enemy — and 25 years later, that refusal is why the war never actually ended.

In this episode, Yaron Brook sits down with Elan Journo and Onkar Ghate of the Ayn Rand Institute to ask the question nobody in Washington wants to answer: what actually was 9/11, ideologically, and why did America's response guarantee it would happen again? They trace the line from a "War on Terror" that never named Islamic Totalitarianism as the enemy, through the strategic collapse in Afghanistan and Iraq, to a country that now doubts its own founding ideas more than it doubts the men who attacked it. This isn't a history lesson. It's a diagnosis of why the confidence America had on September 10, 2001 is gone — and what it would take to get it back.

🔴 Live audience Q&A included — Yaron, Elan, and Onkar take real viewer questions on Islamism, foreign policy, and American self-doubt.

🎧 Subscribe for more Yaron Brook Show episodes on Objectivism, capitalism, and the ideas shaping the world.

Timestamps:

0:23 — Opening: the principles of freedom and why 9/11's anniversary still matters

1:25 — Introducing Elan Journo and Onkar Ghate