Twenty years ago, the United States changed, and not for the better. A small group of terrorists wanted to strike at the heart of America's financial power. They did little damage to corporate America and had no effect on corporate greed and domination. If anything, they helped make it easier for the unscrupulous to manipulate the gullible. But those terrorists were highly successful at making the people even more hateful and paranoid than before.
When I was a child, an Egyptian family moved into the neighborhood. This was a big event because, from my point of view, they had children my age. The adults probably noticed that this new family was not white. Racism was popular long before 9/11, but no one in our neighborhood seemed to care that this family was Muslim. Most of the talk was about pyramids and mummies. Some of us were baffled that the new family's children had never seen pyramids in person. That was like being from France and never seeing the Eiffel Tower, though it is pretty hard to spot from Nice. I never heard anyone use the word terrorist.
That would play out very differently today.
I can remember a time when Americans of different political persuasions could talk to each other in a civil manner. Believe it or not, there was even a time when people acknowledged that more than two political parties existed. In 1992, Ross Perot had a significant impact on the election. He was neither Republican nor Democrat.
Today, there might as well be only two parties, the Capulets and Montagues. They are not rivals for the same throne. They are sworn enemies. Where it used to be Americans who saw things one way versus Americans who saw things another way, today it is patriots versus traitors; real Americans versus unAmericans. The end of the Cold War played an enormous part in the country's internal division. With no common enemy to unite against, the house was free to divide against itself. Saudis flying planes into buildings did not cause any of that, but it certainly did not help.
