On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, I had just finished a night shift on patrol at the police department. I was exhausted and fell asleep on my couch in the living room with the Today show in the background.
I, like those who lived through major events like Pearl Harbor and the assassination of JFK will always vividly remember exactly where I was at that moment, and how I felt.
I remember foggily opening my eyes around 9:30 a.m. or so to the images of the first plane and watching in horror at the livestream of the second.
The next night on patrol began with a deafeningly silent briefing, and although we struggled to process what had just happened, there was a sense of what was to come. A co-worker and I left work and went to the Red Cross to give blood, where the room was full of donors. Congress stood out in front of the Capitol and sang the anthem. The unity and cohesion inside America were palpable. Fast forward to today, and those dynamics would be shocking to see, and seemingly impossible.
Bin Laden’s seminal act was not on that day, or in the weeks after.
Today we see a string of events over 25 years that have led us to Trumpism, a decaying democracy, and a fracturing of our American experiment that I could not have predicted in 2001.
Bin Laden’s plan was far longer-reaching, and so far, it has been working. The question before all of us now is, will it reach its finality. Will we reclaim our democracy, or let it go?
Mario Quintero, Sandy