What Went Wrong?

In hindsight, the 1990s were an idyllic time. The Berlin Wall was gone, the Cold War was over, and humanity seemed to have survived the threat of nuclear annihilation. Movies and music reflected a newfound optimism about the future of humanity, and historians like Francis Fukuyama wrote that we had reached the end of history.

Bill Clinton was the first Baby Boomer president, and the first Democrat to win reelection since FDR. His unofficial campaign slogan — “it’s the economy, stupid!” — represented an attempt to move away from the ideological battles that had characterized American politics since the New Deal. Debates between Clinton and Bob Dole, and later Al Gore and George W. Bush centered around economic concerns rather than the polarizing ideological differences we see today.

This world was shattered on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, when four jet airplanes were commandeered by Al Qaeda terrorists. Two planes were flown into the World Trade Center in New York, resulting in the destruction of the twin skyscrapers, while a third impacted the Pentagon in Washington, DC. A fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, perhaps due to the actions of passengers onboard who had learned of the fate of the other three.

In the days after 9/11, the American people were unified like never before. President Bush’s approval rating crossed 90%, and members of Congress gathered on the steps of the Capitol to sing “God Bless America”. The attack brought the American people together, and many have longed for that sense of unity ever since.

But what did that unity accomplish?

In the wake of the attacks, Congress passed the Patriot Act, which expanded the ability of intelligence agencies to investigate potential threats. At the time we were told it was necessary to prevent the next 9/11, but today our government uses its provisions to spy on American dissidents.

President Bush received authorization to invade Afghanistan to track down the terrorists who planned the attacks, leading to a twenty year occupation as well as additional deployments to Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and many other countries. The best and brightest young Americans were passed through the meat grinder of war for no real reason, and conservatism became indistinguishable from militarism.

President Bush’s second term was bogged down by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, while domestic policy languished. Good ideas like school choice and allowing workers to invest portions of their own Social Security payments fell by the wayside as the wars dominated the discourse.

Democrats had no such troubles. They pushed Obamacare through Congress in 2009 while the Supreme Court imposed gay marriage on the nation in 2015. By this time, the administrative state was in firm control of the government, so that even the Trump administration was unable to properly steer the ship of state.

Two songs by the late Toby Keith illustrate the decline we’ve endured since 9/11. In the wake of the attack, as our all-powerful military prepared to strike back against the terrorists, Keith recorded “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue,” an angry and defiant anthem about how our country was hit with a “sucker punch” but we would respond with shock and awe. It’s a reminder of what the world felt like in the weeks and months following 9/11:

Twenty years later, Keith recorded a song celebrating America’s birthday which was tinged with regrets and laments about our diminished state:

The further we get from 9/11, the more we see how it was a demarcation point between two distinct eras. Just as the transformation of Rome from republic to empire in the days of Julius Caesar was gradual enough that most citizens didn’t even realize it was happening, so too has been the transformation of the United States of America from what it was to what it will be.

What will our nation be in the next five, ten, fifty years? Are we to continue down the path of technocratic totalitarianism, or regain a sense of the liberties that made our country great in the first place? This year’s election will give us a good idea of where we are headed. Are there enough patriotic Americans left who value freedom, liberty, and more importantly, responsibility? Or are there too many voters who will cast their ballots for free stuff and turning neighbor against neighbor in the name of the Marxist revolution?

Yet not even a second Trump administration will be enough to save this country if we don’t get to work in our states and our communities. Nothing that happens at the national level matters if we don’t build strong families first, and everything follows from there. National revival will not come from the top down, but grow from the bottom up.

We have to go back, but the only way back is forward. There’s no going backward in time —we must find a vision for the future that preserves the values of the past. America has been going the wrong way for a long time, but I don’t think we’re too far gone yet. C.S. Lewis defined progress as returning to the point where you went astray and making the right turn. We must regain the values of when men were masculine, women were feminine, and children were innocent. We can once again be a country where a man trusts his neighbor, and where our leaders and journalists tell the truth. The American people can once again believe in American exceptionalism.

In his inaugural address in 1961, President Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Remember when our country was worth serving? The best way to honor the memories of those who died 23 years ago is to rebuild the country they loved.