Start Date: September 16, 2025
It was shortly after September 11, 2025 that I found myself thinking about the time that has passed and the societal changes in America, some expected and some unimaginable.
If you are an American, of age 40 or over, this is a meaningful memory. It might be Generation X’s Pearl Harbor, except with civilian casualties and on live TV.
From the opening lines of Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities”.
“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times”
The worst for all the obvious reasons.
Roughly 3000 people died, either in the trade towers, the Pentagon, or on the planes. Since then similar numbers have died from exposure to chemicals. The accumulated trauma and strain on families is impossible to fully comprehend.
But it was the best of America. People risked, and even gave, their lives for co-workers and random strangers. Air traffic controllers performed unprecedented feats to land all airborne planes over the country.
All but the most evil stood together for America. Flags were everywhere. A conservative President who was elected in a close vote was greeted as a hero when he appeared in NYC for a Yankees World Series game.
For days people lined the streets cheering on the firefighters who spent months working at the pit, attempting to find bodies. One responder said that he couldn’t buy lunch in NYC for a month. Anyone in uniform was served “on the house” because of the public gratitude.
What has happened in America since then is hard to fathom.
The fervor of unity couldn’t last forever. But on May 2, 2011 people cheered outside of the White House when we heard that the Navy Seals had dispatched Osama bin Laden to the briny deep. Phillies fans and Mets fans hugged each other when the news broke at the game. We were still, at that time, part of the larger “USA-USA” team.
But within a decade from that time police everywhere became among the most reviled people in the country, despite being the only thing between the citizenry and chaos. In many cities chaos is winning. Firefighters are still appreciated when saving your home, but increasingly in a demographic that elicits references to “toxic masculinity.”
This July (2026) was the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the most important statement on divine rights to basic freedom.
Now in September on the eleventh it will be that time again. It will be 9-11.
Memorials are typically held in Manhattan, at the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania, where United flight 93 was taken down by passengers who knew they were giving up their lives, but wanted to do it with meaning and purpose.
The survivors are less each passing year, as is the natural course of things. But the ones remaining will gather to ring the bells and to say the names of those lost in that most horrible day in our civilian history.
The person representing NYC will not be Rudy Giuliani, or Michael Bloomberg.
It will be Mayor Zohran Momadani, an Islamic Marxist from Uganda, a man whose mother describes him as “definitely not an American at all” [1].
Zohran Mamdani is member of the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America). In theory they reject capitalism but he seems fine with the nepotism of inheriting wealth generated by capitalism.
He has stated that the NYPD are racist, despite being a minority majority force, and are a threat to public safety.
Mr. Mamdani ignored the Italian and Irish enclaves when creating a map of ethnic communities in NYC, despite those cultures being integrally involved in both building the city and serving in the responder departments.
His campaign was heavily promoted by a man who said America deserved 9-11, that the blood of capitalists (e.g. the 10’s of thousands working in the World Trade Center) should flow in the streets, and that Jews are effectively asking to be attacked.
So the nation’s greatest terrorist attack will be memorialized by leaders who agree with its intended outcome.
It is hard to understand how our nation got here but our adversaries seem willing to play the long game.
I find myself going back to depressing yet prescient thoughts of the brilliant Mark Steyn [2].
Why do it the hard way?
You can arrange visas, train hijackers to fly, and develop a detailed and coordinated plan, requiring some luck and careful execution. If all goes to plan the end result is the destruction of Trade Center, the Pentagon, and likely the Capital and/or White House, all while killing hundreds of responders.
OR
You can put them in a suit, teach them to rap, make TikTok videos, and develop a political party that doesn’t believe in capitalism, wants to abolish the police, wants to close the Pentagon, and eliminate the Senate and an elected Presidency. Less bloodshed and therefore less pushback. But it will achieve the objectives in an institutional and more lasting fashion.
Why take a nation by force and elicit resistance when a few Pied Pipers can simply lead them to surrender?
Game, Set, but hopefully not Match.
REFERENCES
[1] Crane, Emily, “Zohran Mamdani’s mom described son as ‘not an American at all’ in resurfaced interview”, California Post, October 29, 2025, https://nypost.com/2025/10/29/us-news/zohran-mamdanis-mom-said-he-is-not-an-american-at-all-in-2013-interview/
[2] Steyn, Mark, “All Quiescent on the Western Front”, Steynonline, July 28, 2026, https://www.steynonline.com/16332/all-quiescent-on-the-western-front