Twenty five years and one day ago I went to sleep after watching The Late Show with David Letterman. The next morning,, the television still on, I woke to see the Twin Towers of the World Trace Center - except there was only one tower and that was billowing smoke from the upper stories. And then it collapsed in on itself.
I don't recall what I did the rest of the day. But I do remember when David Letterman cam back on a week later. He monologue was somber and well calibrated for the moment.
The only moment as memorable for me was the storming of Congress by Trump's supporters nineteen years later.
The last quarter century has been tumultuous and consequential: the financial crisis of 2008, the rise of the tea party and it's morphing into MAGA. The rise - and rapid evaporation of Occupy Wall Street. Barack Obama's presidency, when I felt we were in safe honest careful hands. Trumps' first term and the chaos he brought with him, but protected from his worst over-reach by the flimsy 'guard rails' of competent and patriotic civil servants. The blocking of Obama's Supreme Court nomination by Mitch McConnell. The storming of the Capitol. Two failed impeachment attempts. The decline of Biden's mental capacities and his hubristic run from a second term. And now the corrupt sociopathic second term of our current president and his unqualified, incompetent lackeys, Russia's war with Ukraine, the war with Iran, Trump's trade war with US allies, the rise of China and of AI.
The world seemed a simpler place twenty five years and one day ago. Though I didn't appreciate it then, I know now that those were the best of times. And the worst of times seem like they are here to stay. 911 was a terrible day. But in the days and weeks that followed it seemed like something good could come out of tragedy. Now it seems as though that hope was misplaced. It's sad, just very, very sad.
