Both instantaneously undermined the nation’s psyche and our belief that big wide oceans keep us safe. Think of the attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, or the terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists on Sept. 6 is in some ways similar to other shocks we have endured, other moments that have shattered our sense of safety and our belief in the order of things. We want to believe that our country is inherently good, that we stand as a beacon of freedom to the rest of the world, that the American Dream is here for the having if you can find your way to our shores. To be American has always been to embrace a certain amount of make-believe. “Today is 1776,” tweeted Lauren Boebert, the gun-toting freshman Republican representative from Colorado just before that blood-thirsty mob of Donald Trump supporters smashed glass and wood, killed a cop and broke our hearts. That is the country Joe Biden inherits on Wednesday. We were, suddenly, a nation not just capable of violent insurrection but in the middle of one. One day later, it all came crashing down. 5, we lived in a country of strong if slightly fraying democratic institutions with a flawless history of peacefully transferring power from one president to the next. Cherished beliefs can desert us in an instant.
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