Firefighters participate in the Patriot Day Procession in San Jose on Sept. 11, 2021. The event commemorates the lives lost during the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

As we pay solemn tribute to the memory of the thousands who lost their lives 25 years ago on Sept. 11 — including hundreds of heroic first responders who rushed into the collapsing Twin Towers and the passengers of Flight 93, who forced their plane to crash in a Pennsylvania field rather than allow their hijackers to crash it into their likely intended target, the U.S. Capitol — it’s vitally important for us to also take a few moments to remember how it felt, as a nation, to come together as one in the spirit of unity and common purpose.

Patriotism swelled in our hearts, for example, as our president addressed us with a bullhorn atop a crumpled fire truck at Ground Zero, rallying our nation to come together in the most fragile moments of crisis.

It seems almost quaint now to speak in these terms. Because the man who currently occupies the White House has never sought to unify us. Rather, at every opportunity, he divides and turns us against one another. So much so that it is now quaint to speak of that, too.

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The man who has twice taken the oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution” has repeatedly tried to upend that sacred document — including by helping to perpetrate what is arguably the single worst domestic terrorist attack in our nation’s history.

The deadly siege and looting of the Capitol — our seat of government — including the bludgeoning and ultimate deaths of U.S. Capitol police officers, the desecration of sacred halls with shattered glass, splintered wood and human feces. Rioters armed with blunt........

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