Andrew Malekoff
I’m pretty good at untangling knots and working my way out of messes. Sometimes, though, a mess is well beyond my reach and stuck in the hands of unreliable strangers.
Shortly after 9/11, I worried that we might find ourselves under sustained attack by foreign terrorists. For a time, I would not travel over bridges or through tunnels into Manhattan or New Jersey.
What gave me some hope was when I sensed people coming together in grief and healing. Partisan politics dissipated in the service of national unity. It was a beautiful thing to behold.
I can vividly recall the eerie silence the first time I rode the NYC subway after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. The collective sorrow in the train car was palpable. Despite the diversity of the riders around me, we shared the same mournful face, united in grief.
Today, almost 20 years later, it feels so different. Almost 3,000 people were killed in the attack on American soil on September 11, 2001; and, we came together. Since March 2020, more than 605,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus; and, we are torn apart.
Hundreds of homegrown terrorists brandishing confederate, Nazi and MAGA symbols attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, some of them using American flag poles to bludgeon police.
Thirty-five U.S. senators refused to support a bill to create an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate the attack. Instead, in yet another conspiracy theory, they have called for a probe of the F.B.I.
These cowardly legislators are backed by millions of Americans who believe the fairy tales told by a deposed emperor with no clothes, who has convinced them that he won an election which he verifiably lost by much more than a slim margin.
In 2018, at a Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Kansas City, then President Trump told the veterans, “Just remember, what you are seeing and what you are reading is not what’s happening.”
Timothy Snyder was on target when he stated in his book “On Tyranny: To abandon facts is to abandon freedom.”
And, that is where the insurrectionist former president and his band of democracy-challenged misfits are leading millions of Americans. His mantra all along has been some variation of, “who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”
The solemnity and forbearance which united us after our national tragedy 20 years ago, has been succeeded by suspicion and disunion in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, Capitol insurrection and ongoing efforts to restrict voting rights.
Bipartisanship has become an anachronism. Superman’s motto – truth, justice and the American way, which I grew up with as a child, rings hollow for today’s children.
Being adept at untangling knots does not equip me to envision a way out the mess that has been inspired by a despot who preaches an alternative reality to his malleable millions.
In the face of national tragedy and threats to weaken our democracy by restricting voting rights, Americans are far from united. We have drifted apart in suspicion and distrust of one another. As we move from one day of independence (Juneteenth) to another (Fourth of July), this is not a good time for Americans of goodwill to be silent and still.
