Molineaux is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and president/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
Each of us has a moral compass. This internal sense of right and wrong guides our behavioral choices throughout our lives. A navigational compass always points true north unless a magnet is nearby. Then it will point to the magnet.
Our moral compass can also be magnetized. Instead of pointing to our values of integrity, loyalty, compassion and so on, it points to those who are polarizing us, telling us that only THEY hold the moral high ground and we should give them our attention, money and power. Our moral compass needs to be recalibrated on a national scale. Can we even step out of the toxic polarized conditioning to assess what our individual moral compasses are today?
What is the north star for you? What are the values and ethics by which you guide your life? I imagine yours will be a similar to mine:
- Be honest with self and others.
- Honor family and friends before other commitments.
- Contribute to the betterment of the community.
- Stand up for what is right and good; i.e. the dignity of others.
- Be myself and allow others to be themselves. “You do you.”
In my personal life, these are the results of alignment with my moral compass:
- Relationships with family and friends are strong.
- I apologize when I make mistakes or harm others.
- I work every day to evolve myself and those around me to be better citizens.
- I have pledged “dignity first” for all interactions.
- I am mostly non-judgmental about other’s choices.
What about our national moral compass? A national moral compass is the weaving of all of us together that results in a national ethos. Here are the results of our national moral compass:
- Name calling and public demonization of any person as bad, evil, ugly, etc., is OK.
- Doxxing is part of serving the public; where people are unsafe in their homes and jobs when called out.
- Rigid belief systems keep us from liking each other based on labels and assumptions.
- It’s OK to strip voting rights and bodily autonomy away from people via the courts and legislation.
- Threats of violence will be used to enforce one belief system on all of us.
What are the values that lead to these results?
- Winning is everything.
- Money is power.
- Time is money.
- Fame is priceless.
Just reading this list of values, I am angry. Angry that We the People have allowed The Politics Industry and Conflict Profiteers to magnetize the good hearts of Americans, turning them against one another. What we need is for millions of Americans to:
- Participate in self-reflection, resetting their own moral compass without the magnetizing impact of conflict profiteers. ( More tools here.)
- Interact with others to learn from them. Calling forth their own recalibrated moral compass.
- Become one of the 12M Americans who will stand up for our democratic republic and all those who seek to destroy it for profit, power and fame.
How might we bring better alignment between our personal and national moral compasses? This is the work of our lifetime.
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.