FORT WORTH, Texas – This time of year always gets to me.
When American flags begin adorning businesses and government buildings, and (to a lesser degree) private residences, the memories of that day – now 21 years ago – come flooding back.
I was in college when 9/11 happened.
Because widespread use of the smartphone was still something of fantasy, I entered my first class of the morning unaware of what was unfolding several hundred miles away.
After we watched the smoldering ashes of the World Trade Center on the classroom TV for a few minutes, the professor dismissed us. I walked onto the grass outside the government department building and sat down, the sense of shock and vulnerability had seemingly caused my knees to buckle.
Later that day, I huddled before the TV in the small student lounge of my dormitory with my fellow students to watch the news, mostly in silence.
And that evening, I joined the rest of campus for a candlelight vigil. I think we sang a hymn, “O, God Our Help in Ages Past,” which, despite being overtly Christian, was not met with any consternation even at my public university.
Those early days after the attacks were fearful and uncertain: Our nation was grappling not only with the tremendous loss of life but also with the loss of our sense of security.
We were reluctant to fly and hesitant to gather in large groups.
But we trusted our institutions to hold and we looked to our elected leaders to bring us together and guide us through the mire.
And for the most part, they came through; even voter approval of Congress soared in the months immediately following .
Say what you might about the presidency of George W. Bush, but when he threw out the first pitch at Game 3 of the World Series in Yankee Stadium, the sense of national unity was palpable; the sense of faith in American resilience profound.
It’s hard to believe that was just over two decades ago. In comparison, the political environment in which we currently dwell is unrecognizable.
Today, leaders on the right and the left are consumed with contempt for their political opponents and determined to foment antipathy among their supporters.
Instead of soaring speeches about the need for us to come together against a common enemy, we have national addresses in which large swaths of the population are identified as the enemy.
Instead of calls to protect religious and ethnic minorities, to confront racism and prejudice seriously and soberly, our government now seeks to squelch religious freedoms and demonize people of faith.
We once agreed on what violence is and is not because we witnessed an attempt to destroy our nation.
Now, our elite political class ignores skyrocketing crime and obsesses over microaggressions and misgendering.
The divides run deep.
Mayors and governors bicker like children, each seeking to appeal only to their political base. Whatever is necessary to win the next election.
Nationwide controversies trickle down into our local politics — city councils and school boards — the rhetoric ever intensifying, often pitting neighbor against neighbor.
Social media doesn’t help. Neither does the national media in many cases, which often seems to relish in magnifying the worst of humanity.
It’s no wonder that faith in our institutions is at an all-time low — from Congress to public schools to organized religion and even the medical system.
Our systems have failed us before, but today, there appears to be little hope that our systems are worth recovering, little faith that they were designed to serve the greater good.
Consider how fleeting was our national solidarity in the face of the COVID pandemic.
It’s easy, of course, in hindsight to view the national response to 9/11 with rose-colored glasses, to recall falsely that it was without its share of strife and controversy.
Support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would eventually fade, for good reasons and bad. But our national character didn’t seem so irredeemable as it does now.
In the wake of 9/11, I recall one of my college professors asking the class to consider: “How did we get here?”
In the 21 years since, the same question might be asked about our nation. As for what to do about it, no one seems to have the answers.
