Every so often a post makes the rounds through social media reminding us of how we all came together as a county- and as a planet in many respects- after the events of September 11th 2001. The exact verbiage varies, but the message is that it’s too bad we can’t go back to that, and sometimes hints that it would take another tragedy of that magnitude for it to happen again.
Well, here we are. It’s fair to say that the current global pandemic is exponentially larger in scale than anything we’ve seen or dealt with as a nation since World War Two. So we are all looking flying American flags and coming together as a people, right?
Not. Even. Close.
Nope. Not even this can make politicians or even average Joes stop the bickering. There are still just as many- if not more- posts on social media about why one side has it right and the other wrong about the right course of action for this country to take. We ALL need to be looking for out each other right now. And yet we can’t seem to even stop typing in all caps on Facebook.
And yes, I know MANY individuals who are doing amazing, selfless things right now. I do not mean to diminish anything those folks are doing. But as a country, we are no more coming together now than we were 3 or 6 months ago. And, unfortunately, this starts at the top. We have a Senate Majority Leader bragging about the “Republican Bill” instead of its name, the CARES Act. We have a President bragging about the ratings his press conferences get and admitting he only wants to help out states with governors who are “nice to him”.
If I’ve learned anything in the past few weeks it’s this- the America that I saw on September 12, 2001 doesn’t exist anymore. And if this current crisis wasn’t enough to bring it back, I have to give up hoping it ever will again.