Twenty years ago, I was in what is now my home's dining area. We had set up our computer in that room, an extra room we were trying to figure out what to do with at that point. We had purchased our house a few months earlier, and were expecting our first child, my son, in about a month and a half. I remember feeling like we had so much space in our place back then.
I was working as a fill in radio host, primarily on Metro Traffic and KFAN, but occasionally helping out at various other stations. I was surfing the internet for my morning news and heard the radio talking about "some idiot flew his plane into one of the World Trade Towers." The narrative was much more joking and mocking. "How could some idiot hit the only buildings standing that tall in New York City?" Then the cocky host gasped in horror as they said "Oh my God, another plane just seemed to intentionally fly into the other tower."
That's the moment the world changed.
I scrambled to the TV and watched in horror. I called my wife and had to fill her in (this was before cell phone news alerts kept us all awake at night). I called my dad and found out my mother was on a business trip in the Carolinas. She was safe, but grounded.
That moment, and the months that followed, was the last time I remember America being united, a welcomed patriotic embrace. The country had been extremely divided in the months leading up to the attack. Gore v. Bush, Enron, and W. Bush's ham handed Administration had gotten us to a point where a huge split in this country was starting to happen. Then 9/11. We were all sad, grieving, angry. We all mourned our loses and (for the most part) were unified in a strong response to the people involved. We went after Bin Laden, Al qaeda and the Taliban. We vowed to do whatever it would take to never let something like this happen again. We all embraced being Americans.
Then came the racist attacks on ALL Muslims and foreigners. Then questions about why Bush let the Saudis off the hook. Then the made up war on Iraq, leaving Bin Laden and the Taliban alive while the US military was sent on a red herring, an attempt by Cheney to wreck OPEC by flooding the markets with Iraqi oil. Then came 'Bin Laden determined to strike in the US.' Then came ludacris Congressional testimony from Bush aides who had determined sounding like morons was the only option they had in their defense.
But there was something subtle that happened late in W.'s 2nd term which ended all hope of unifying us again. I started noticing Conservatives, when talking about 9/11, only focused on the United 93 flight which crashed in Pennsylvania, and the attack on the Pentagon. When I would gently remind those people "AND The World Trade Centers," they would say of course, but the next time we talked the focus would be back to the military attack and the crashed plane in rural Pennsylvania.
Then the same people started to throw around the idea that 9/11 was really an attack on "Real America." When I would ask them what "Real America" was, the response was "it's the parts of this country where wholesome family values, love of God, and a clean and honest quality of life exist, not the corrupted, dirty and ungrateful areas of this country that try take advantage of 'Real Americans'." Hello dog whistle!
As the 2008 election approached, the thin veil was removed and the argument morphed into a blunt "Real America" verses those Liberal anti-American parts of the country. I'd point out the vast majority of the victims of 9/11 came from those supposed 'Liberal anti-American parts of the country,' but they'd ignore me, insisting 9/11 was really a direct attack on Republicans and their values, an attack which Liberals cheered.
This was the beginning.
Look what that has evolved into today. You have on one side people begging everyone to get vaccinated, wear masks, and be as safe as possible as we deal with a major pandemic. On the other side, the argument is "You're LYING! There is nothing to worry about. Let me take my horse de-wormer that can kill me! We're for Personal responsibility." After one of their loved ones gets infected with COVID, the argument is "I'm a victim. Biden did this to me!!!"
The main change in this country over the last twenty years is how one political party (the Republicans) decided to blame the worst things that have happened to us as a country on their political opponents (to get what they wanted). Even when they couldn't find enough real things to blame Democrats for, they just started making stuff up (pizza parlor sacrifice pits, magnetized vaccines, stolen elections).
The reason we are no longer unified as a country is because one side has blamed the other for everything bad this country has experienced not because it's true, but because it was a political opportunity; they created a villain their followers eagerly embraced, enabling the politicians to push through an insanely Conservative political agenda.
If another 9/11 happened today, there would be no unification, even for a day. The Republicans would be screaming about how "It's all the Democrats" fault(!)" as they send out fundraising emails. It will take a generation to reunify this country again.
Let me attempt to remind everyone what brought us together 20 years ago. The Friday Link is (a less than quality copy of) '9/11,' the documentary made by the two French brothers who happened to be on the scene of the attack when it happened.
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