increasingly polarized USA find few or almost no unit instances. The anniversary of the attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, happened on September 11, 2001, it is perhaps one of the only occasions in which the country still shares the same sentiment. The tributes are kept and the commemorative words appear from the two sides of the political spectrum. It is just a brief hiatus in the middle of an electoral campaign in which there are fewer and fewer meeting points.
This Sunday’s event in New York followed the same pattern as every year. Relatives and loved ones of the victims of the attack gathered at the site where, until that September morning, the skyscrapers were located and now there is a memorial. Over there the names of the almost 3,000 people who died were read in attacks. There was a moment of silence as they recalled the moments when planes hit the towers, another hit the Pentagon, a fourth flight crashed in Pennsylvania, and finally, at the same time the towers fell.
The leadership of the government was divided this Sunday to attend the different sites where the attack is remembered. The American President, Joe Bidenheadlined the rally at the Pentagon. His wife Jill, the first lady, traveled to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the place where United Airlines Flight 93 went down without reaching its target. To the emblematic tribute in New York were the Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff.
It was raining this Sunday in Washington when Biden landed in the morning on the outskirts of the capital. The Beast, the presidential car, took him to the event commemorating the attack on the Pentagon. Twenty-one years ago, shortly after two planes hijacked by Al Qaeda terrorists crashed into the Twin Towers in New York, a third crashed into the seat of US military power. “21 years and we still keep our promise: never forget,” Biden said in his speech. “21 years is, at the same time, a lifetime and no time at all”.
Speaking from the Pentagon, Biden highlighted the work of Barack Obama’s presidency, of whom he was vice: “It took 10 years to hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden, but we did it.” He also highlighted the assassination of Ayman al Zawahiri, bin Laden’s successor as leader of Al Qaeda, which he authorized last July. “20 years later, Afghanistan it’s over, but our commitment to prevent another attack on the United States has no end,” he added, despite the criticism his government faced for the Asian country’s withdrawal in 2021.
In a more local tone and in line with the speech he is holding in the middle of the electoral campaign for the November legislative elections, Biden also called for defending the democratic system of the United States: “There is nothing that this nation cannot achieve when we remain united and we defend with all our hearts that which makes us unique in the world: our democracy”. A system that, he said, is the one that guarantees “the rights and freedom that the terrorists sought to bury on September 11” and that Americans have “an obligation, a duty, a responsibility” to preserve. “It is not enough to defend democracy once a year or every so often. It’s something we have to do every day,” he added.
This is the line that the Democratic Party and Biden adopted two months before the legislative elections in which they can lose control of Congress: Democracy in the United States, they argue, is under threat, but this time it is because of domestic extremism embodied by Donald Trump and his supporters.
“Much of what is happening in our country today is not normal. Donald Trump and the MAGA (Make America Great Again) Republicans represent extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic,” Biden had said just two weeks ago in a speech in Philadelphia, the cradle of the country’s independence. North American. “They are working right now, as I speak, in state after state to give supporters and cronies the power to decide elections in the United States, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself,” he said. last September.
At the time, it was questioned on the Republican side, calling it “polarizing,” “inflammatory,” and “divisive.” In a recent Reuters and Ipsos poll, 58 percent of respondents believe that the trumpist movement it threatens the democratic foundations of the United States, but 59 percent also considered that Biden’s speech will further divide the North American country.
Despite experiencing a slight rise in the level of acceptance after more than a year in decline, Biden still has an approval rating of around 40 percent, not far from the one Trump had. His attempt to install a theme that would appeal to the Democratic electorate collides with the general lack of enthusiasm around economic results, currently at the forefront of concerns in American society. Two months before the elections, the only issue that is growing in importance, pushed by Democratic voters, is abortionafter the decision of the conservative majority Supreme Court to repeal this right.
