Back Where We Started.

The article explores how the decade of 1999-2009 started and ended with a divided U.S. nation in terms of politics. It relates the impact of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the political divide in the U.S. It traces how the Democrats lost control of both houses of Congress to Republicans following the election of George W. Bush as U.S. president. It explains how a balanced political power led to the failure of the Republican and Democratic parties to find ways to compromise.