25 Years and America Still Stands Tall

25 Years After September 11 Attacks, Columnist Assesses U.S. Position and Domestic Debates

September 11, 2001, ranks among the dates in U.S. history frequently described as living in infamy. The coordinated attacks on targets along the East Coast that day followed the pattern of the Japanese strike on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. In both cases, the perpetrators aimed to deliver a blow that would limit the United States’ capacity to respond or recover.

Osama bin Laden, the planner of the 2001 attacks, stated goals that included weakening American resolve and influence. The 1941 attack likewise failed to achieve its strategic objectives. Twenty-five years after 2001, the United States continues to maintain the world’s largest military budget and a network of overseas bases and alliances. Its gross domestic product remains the largest of any single nation, and it continues to attract substantial numbers of migrants seeking economic opportunity and legal residency.

Public records show that legal immigration has been the primary channel for permanent settlement throughout much of U.S. history. Current debates center on enforcement of existing statutes and the scale of both legal and unauthorized entries. Columnist Mark Lewis has written that many Americans support immigration provided it occurs through established legal processes and leads to assimilation under prevailing constitutional principles.

Lewis argues that external state actors, including China, Russia, and governments in the Middle East, have not demonstrated the ability to supplant U.S. institutions through direct military action. He cites historical statements attributed to James Madison, Abraham Lincoln’s 1838 Lyceum Address, and historian Will Durant to support the view that significant internal erosion of laws, norms, or cohesion would be required before external forces could prevail. The same column notes that no foreign military has landed on U.S. shores since 1815.

Lewis identifies domestic political competition as the central arena of contention. He states that most registered Democrats seek incremental policy changes rather than the elimination of existing constitutional structures. At the same time, he contends that segments of Democratic leadership pursue outcomes that would replace the framework outlined in the Declaration of Independence with a different economic and political model. These claims are presented as the columnist’s assessment rather than as documented party platforms.

The column references James Talarico’s 2026 Senate campaign in Texas. Talarico, a Democratic candidate, has publicly described himself as a person of Christian faith. Lewis maintains that this self-description conflicts with the candidate’s policy positions and serves to broaden electoral appeal in a state where Republican candidates have won statewide office in recent cycles. Talarico’s campaign has not released statements confirming or denying the characterization.

Lewis quotes Will Durant on the persistence of social forces that challenge established institutions and cites Thomas Sowell’s observation that certain ideological pressures operate inside rather than outside national boundaries. Both statements are offered as warnings about the need for ongoing civic attention to legal and cultural continuity.

The column concludes by directing readers to the author’s Substack publications and to a series of Western fiction titles available through commercial retailers. It also includes an editor’s note from the publishing platform encouraging paid subscriptions.

Throughout the piece, Lewis frames the United States as retaining substantial material and institutional capacity two and a half decades after the 2001 attacks, while locating the primary ongoing contest in the realm of domestic political ideas and electoral outcomes.