The worst part of 9-11

 

To me, the worst part of 9-11 didn't happen that day.
PLENTY of bad shit that day, of course, but the worst came later.
The worst part wasn't spending a 12-hour workday unable to call friends and family in NYC to see if they were alive.
The worst part wasn't seeing a landmark that had been part of my hometown blown up - over and over and OVER again every time the T.V. was on anywhere.
The worst part wasn't having to put on a brave face and try to comfort a dozen people with profound disabilities when I myself was angry and scared.
The worst part wasn't even learning that my grandpa, a WW2 vet who'd almost died and had lost hundreds of his friends in one especially gruesome battle, wept that day because he felt he'd failed to do enough to protect our country from attack.

All that shit was BAD. But it wasn't the worst part.

The worst part was the way so many in our country responded to a threat from violent far-right anti-democratic theocratic jingoism by... rushing headlong into violent far-right anti-democratic theocratic jingoism.
The worst part was that the terrorists got exactly what they wanted - to undermine and divide our country, and make us more like them.

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