9/11 is reaching its quarter-century anniversary. Americans are at a point in their history where the events of 9/11 are beginning to slip meaningfully from living memory into the crepuscular pages of history. At some point, they will cross a line in the next few years where more than half of their population was born after 9/11 or were too young to remember.
I was 6 years old. All I remembered was my brother snatching away a weekly magazine from my hands featuring that harrowing explosion of the second plane in the front cover. I remember learning more about it years later in middle school.
The moment Americans find themselves, fully simmered in the post-truth era, is already troubling. In this mist of confusion and mistrust, Americans may not be able to do what Timothy Snyder urged to: to remain calm when the unthinkable arrives.
The Weinmar Republic of the 21st century may very well end in another Reichstag Fire-like event.
Unless they remember their history.