1. 9/11 did not bring out the best in America. It brought out the worst. It *could* have brought out the best, but the ruling regime immediately co-opted it into a campaign of lies, militarism, anti-intellectualism, and partisan warfare.

— David Roberts (@drvox) September 11, 2018

2. It deformed & distorted US life, in ways that now seem permanent. It bloated the military, bloated intelligence agencies (and led to stupid, unnecessary new ones), degraded civil liberties, and became a re-usable rhetorical tool for reactionary demagogues.

— David Roberts (@drvox) September 11, 2018

3. The only word for the US reaction is immature — collectively, we took it as permission to recede to adolescence, to foot-stomping, hands-over-ears insistence on our own virtue & primacy. That kind of blinkered, ahistorical egotism was re-branded as “moral clarity.”

— David Roberts (@drvox) September 11, 2018

4. Rather than exposing America’s true heroic character — as the official line still goes — it exposed how little of that mythological character remains, how frightened, coddled, petty, and *dumb* we’ve gotten.

— David Roberts (@drvox) September 11, 2018

5. Every hack with access to an op-ed page immediate began using WWII tropes & metaphors, but it was all rhetoric, an inch deep. The sense of sacrifice & shared purpose it was meant to evoke was nowhere evident in reality. Bush told us to go shopping.

— David Roberts (@drvox) September 11, 2018

6. That’s how America’s reaction struck me in the years afterwards: a naked attempt to co-opt the *feelings* of WWII (squinty-eyed courage, pride in the troops) without any of the actual sacrifice or noble purpose. Just a cheap, late-night-TV version of WWII.

— David Roberts (@drvox) September 11, 2018

7. We now live with the hangover of 9/11: a permanent “war on terror” that gives the military-industrial complex carte blanche to continue expanding, a one-way ratcheting down of privacy & civil liberties, and cheap, glib patriotism that fetishizes “troops” & war machines.

— David Roberts (@drvox) September 11, 2018

8. It makes me sad. Like everyone else, on that day & in the days following, I felt not only overwhelming shock & grief but also that undercurrent of national unity — that glimmer that we could move beyond the pettiness of current politics & remember what binds us.

— David Roberts (@drvox) September 11, 2018

9. I too was stunned by the many acts of bravery & selflessness during & after the event — that core decency that trauma often elicits. I felt all that! I wanted it to sustain, to change things, to help us grow up a little.

— David Roberts (@drvox) September 11, 2018

10. Many people still hold onto that feeling — that hint of nobility, of unity — as though it defines the 9/11 experience, as though it really did bring the best out of us. But … it just didn’t. And I don’t want to be involved in an act of collective self-mythologizing.

— David Roberts (@drvox) September 11, 2018

11. What 9/11 exposed is that the US, for all its power & wealth, is not well. We’re hollowed out, frightened, spoiled, & insecure. (That’s what the insistent, enforced patriotic din signals — deep, deep insecurity.) Public life induges our worst instincts, not our best.

— David Roberts (@drvox) September 11, 2018

12. We didn’t take it as a cue to grow up, we took it as a excuse to regress. And so here we are: military & police powers expanding without limit, ignorance of other cultures as deep as ever, and patriotism reduced to a set of gaudy symbols used to increase NFL viewership.

— David Roberts (@drvox) September 11, 2018

13. That, it makes me so sad to say, is what 9/11 has come to mean to me: tragic loss & suffering that enabled militarists and crony capitalists to co-opt patriotism and crush dissent and self-criticism. An event that made the US its most crass, incurious, belligerent self.

— David Roberts (@drvox) September 11, 2018

14. I’d like to think we’ll “never forget” 9/11, but honestly, we already have. What we “remember” is a contextless melange of self-serving images, feelings, & myths. What we’ve forgotten is how easily we are tipped over into collective nat’l mania & how much damage we do in it.

— David Roberts (@drvox) September 11, 2018

15. The single saddest aspect of 9/11, beyond the direct loss of life (& the suffering of survivors, which continues to this day), is how thoroughly we rejected the opportunity to learn anything. If it happened again tomorrow, I honestly think we would make all the same mistakes.

— David Roberts (@drvox) September 11, 2018

16. So, on this 9/11 anniversary, I wish comfort & peace of mind for all those who lost loved ones, in the attacks & subsequent wars. You deserve it.

— David Roberts (@drvox) September 11, 2018

17. But the rest of us could stand a little LESS comfort, a few more tough questions, and, at long last, an honest appraisal of why, when faced with a pivotal & historic challenge to our character, we fucked it up so badly.

— David Roberts (@drvox) September 11, 2018