20th anniversary of 9 / 11, COVID, and how we treat one another

Two thousand, nine hundred, ninety-six.

That’s how many lives were lost on 9/11. To give you some semblance of how big a number that is, an average column I write is about 600 words. So figure five columns worth of words, and that’s the number of people tragically killed on that day.

There have been over 666,000 COVID deaths in America. That would be over 1,100 columns.

Now: I’m not here to compare the tragedy of 9/11 with the ongoing tragedy of COVID.

So if I’m not comparing tragedies, what am I doing?

I’m comparing our reactions to these tragedies.

In the days, weeks, and months after 9/11, I was shocked and pleased at how we handled ourselves. We weren’t even a year removed from the Bush-Gore hanging chad drama, but it didn’t matter. We all came together as one. For a short, brief moment, there were seemingly no divisions. We were all in this thing together.

Now sure, perhaps I’m remembering this through rose-colored glasses to an extent, but no one is going to convince me otherwise.

One of my most ingrained memories was the amount of times people were letting people make left-hand turns. Stupid, I know, but still: We all decided to put any petty nonsense behind us and live together as a singular unit as Americans.

Fast forward 20 years (can’t believe it’s been 20 years) and what do we see?

It ain’t kumbaya by the campfire, I’ll tell you that much. We are at each other’s throats over COVID, and we’ve pretty much split ourselves into two camps. Of course, it’s not just COVID. The Trump era splintered us, eventually causing some misguided Americans to actually try and overthrow the government.

The Obama era wasn’t much better when it came to bringing us together.

Go back to the Bush years, and while it’s nice to look back at George W. as a retroactively steady hand, let’s not forget he started a war or two we really had no business starting.

So what gives? How did we get to this point?

Probably social media. I know that’s a flip answer, I know there’s so much more to it, but our ability to be our worst selves while hiding behind a computer screen has clearly bled into everyday life.

Our behavior is clearly worse than it used to be. (See: People having to be duct-taped on airplanes, how people treat waitstaff, etc.) Add in the alwayson nature of life these days, add in the continued separation of the haves and have-nots, add in a recession or two, add in former president who sought to destroy the political norms, add it all together and we’ve become a bunch of asshats.

Back on 9/11, we were barely using cell phones, we still kind of depended on the network nightly news for what was important, we could come home after a long day at work and not start arguing with strangers on Facebook.

We were still able to rally together for the common good.

Clearly, today, we are not able to rally together for the common good.

And when I think about the 2,996 people who died that day, I can’t help but think all 2,996 of them would be disgusted at how we’re behaving these days.

I don’t think it’s too late, by the way. I have high hopes for the younger generation, kids being brought up as natives in the world of social media and (hopefully) realizing arguing about politics (or pizza, for that matter) with strangers is a fool’s errand.

And today, when we all take a moment to remember 9/11, what say we all take vow to be better at this adulting thing, to be better people, to be better Americans. Because as the immediate aftermath of 9/11 proved, it’s clear we have it in us.

Let’s stop getting riled up by politicians who seek to divide us, by talk radio hosts who seek to divide us, by social media trolls who seek to divide us, by people who are or aspire to be all three.

We are better than this. Start letting people make lefthand turns again.