Molineaux is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and president/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
This is the third and final editorial in a series about bridging divides and thwarting authoritarianism. Read part 1 and part 2.
The quality of our relationships is one measure of our national strength and our country’s well-being. “A house divided against itself can not stand,” as Abraham Lincoln once noted. Authoritarians have noted this, too. Hence their efforts to spew lies and conspiracy theories designed to weaken our nation.
My ongoing (and rhetorical) questions about our ability to strengthen democracy and bridge our divides include:
- Given how smart we are, why do we allow ourselves to be divided?
- What is so damn important about our political identities that we splinter ourselves into warring camps and suffer alone or in grievance groups?
- How might we use our skills as mediators, coaches, conflict specialists and bridgers to remind us and those around us that politics is only one part of who we are?
- We have common human needs and common goals, which we seem to forget. How can we remember better?
- Who are we really? Who must we become?
- How do we discredit the conflict profiteers and minimize their damage?
Systemically, we need scholars of authoritarianism to lead the way. As human beings sharing a community, we need people to have the skills of bridging and conflict resolution to self-govern in a healthy way, once we have chosen our democratic republic and/or improved upon it.
A September article about a psychologist highlights the importance of high-quality relationships and supports the underlying hypothesis of the bridging divides work for self-governance:
“A high-quality relationship is one in which we have an ongoing sense that our partner has our back,” says Alexandra Solomon, a licensed clinical psychologist, author and host of the Reimagining Love podcast.
Solomon adds other factors that can come into play, such as a sense of trust and commitment. “Commitment is essential,” Solomon notes. “That sense that you were here yesterday, you’re here today, you’re going to be here tomorrow. That sense of continuity helps us relax and makes it safe enough to be vulnerable.”
We have all experienced trauma, from family dynamics to the education system to the pandemic and more. When we lose relationships over politics, that is an additional trauma. Now we have an entire body politic that is traumatized while we are experiencing massive change due to multiple crises.
We need each other more than ever before. Yet societally, we are experiencing an epidemic of loneliness. When an authoritarian group recruits, it offers a community and the vulnerable among us the opportunity to decide it’s a better option.
Can we imagine what it’s like for someone to have our back? To have confidence that our fellow Americans and people different from ourselves are committed to our happiness and well-being? Of course, we need to provide that for others, too.
We need to have each other’s back in society – that’s liberty and justice for all, as we used to pledge in school.
Our multiple crises feel urgent. Many of us already know what is needed. It is time to be bold. It is time to turn ideas into action. Let us act now; to nurture and prioritize high-quality relationships with people who are different from ourselves. Denounce political violence and take pledges to accept election results. Advancing the American experiment is the work of our lifetimes. And if we succeed, we will rededicate to one another (via bridging divides) and to our democratic republic (via non-violent, pro-democracy acts).
Let’s stop studying the problem and start the work. That’s the essence of the bridging divides and pro-democracy work for everyday people.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.