The long and complex political legacy of 9/11

At least there’s one thing that’s sacred.

In a show of unity that lasted barely longer than a moment of silence, President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and ex-President Donald Trump suspended political hostilities and stood together at Ground Zero in Manhattan Tuesday, marking the 23rd anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks in 2001.

Trump and Harris — who had not met until Tuesday night at their fiery debate – even shook hands for the second time in less than 24 hours. That gesture was apparently orchestrated by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance was there too, wearing a dark blue suit, white shirt and scarlet tie to match Trump’s signature outfit. For a few nostalgic seconds, the commemoration ceremony evoked the now-forgotten national coming together in the horrific days of grief and shock following the attacks.

9/11 is now far enough in the past that it’s taking on a historic hue. But for anyone who lived through it, those days remain visceral. The pain never ebbs for those who lost loved ones in the twin towers of the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon, on the four fuel-laden planes turned into weapons by al Qaeda terrorists or those whose relatives perished in the post-9/11 wars. A chance glance at a clock reading 8:46 a.m., the moment the first plane hit the North Tower on a crisp September morning in New York, can bring memories of an early 21st century day that will live in infamy flooding back.

The gathering of past, present and future US leaders Tuesday was a reminder of the still unfolding cascade of political consequences triggered by the attacks.

The subsequent bloody overseas wars initiated by the George W. Bush administration after the attacks contributed to the public fatigue and loss of trust in government institutions that Trump was able to exploit in his own rise to power. Many of the US soldiers who served multiple tours and died in the global war on terror were reservists from small town America, or what’s now become Trump country. And two decades after the US invasion of Afghanistan, the war is at the center of another presidential campaign as Harris and Trump trade blame over the chaotic US withdrawal in 2021 and a political controversy rages over the deaths of 13 US service personnel at Kabul airport.

A chain of unlikely political ramifications can also be traced to the attacks. But for the collapse in Bush’s support after the wars turned into quagmires, there may have been no lane for a young Illinois senator, Barack Obama, who opposed the Iraq war, to become president. In some ways, Trump’s presidency was born out of backlash to the first Black president. And Biden probably wouldn’t have been president without Trump and the chaos he caused. Had Biden not been called back to serve at his advanced age, there’d probably be no opening for his vice president, Harris, to run this year after the president folded his reelection bid amid public concern about his acuity. Vance, who served in Iraq as a combat correspondent, is meanwhile, the first of the post-9/11 generation of enlistees on a major party presidential ticket.

Nearly a quarter century on, a renewed Great Power struggle has replaced terrorism as the most prominent geopolitical threat. Osama bin Laden has been dead for more than 13 years. And, underscoring the passage of time, some young voters born after 9/11 will this year vote in their second presidential election.

But the world’s worst terror attack still has a powerful psychological and political half-life and is embedded deep in America’s soul, as we are reminded every September.

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