Everyone but the smallest of children can tell you where they were on 9/11/01 when the United States suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history. I was working in a call center at the time. We went from twenty calls in queue to none. It was as if someone flipped a switch and turned off the phone system.
It has been 17 years. We have been at war ever since that day. Somewhere out there, a child born on 9/11/01 signed up to join the military on 9/11 of this year. To fight in a war that started the day he or she was born. The terrorists won that day.
I know that is not a popular opinion, and will likely see me branded as a traitor, among other things by those on the right in this country. But they did win, they accomplished their goal that day. Everything changed on 9/11.
Within weeks we had troops on the ground in Afghanistan. Within two years we had troops on the ground in Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with attacking the United States. It would be ten years before Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda would would be killed in Pakistan—a country we were not at war with. We are still fighting in Afghanistan.
That is not all that changed—we became a nation that lived in fear after 9/11. That fear is what has led us directly to the election of Donald Trump, and the Republican Party of today. I still remember when the Department of Homeland Security was created—it sounded like something that would have existed in Germany of 1939, or the Soviet Union of the 1950s. Certainly not the United States of America in 2002. It also gave us the Transportation Security Agency in November of 2001—while ensuring air travel is safe is important, the security theater of the TSA does nothing to make us safer.
And 9/11 is also why the right has been able to make immigration a greater wedge issue than it has been in the recent past. Immigrants, documented or not, have been doing the jobs Americans won’t do for decades. When the current White House resident says,
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
Or this,
“What can be simpler or more accurately stated? The Mexican Government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States. They are, in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc.”
He is not basing that on facts, he is using fear. The reality is, they are coming here to pick crops, hang drywall, and clean our houses.
The togetherness felt in the aftermath of 9/11 dissipated quickly when the right wrapped themselves in the flag and dove willingly into an unnecessary war in Iraq. When a black man was elected president, the right lost its collective mind.
Today—we cannot have civil discussions about policy with our friends and family on the right. They are driven by fear, lies, bigotry, xenophobia, and hate. They want to “Make America Great Again,” although I am not sure how bringing the worst out in Americans makes us great.
The terrorists on 9/11 got what they wanted. A country torn apart.