CNN
—

There is at least one thing that is sacred.

In a show of unity that lasted little longer than a moment of silence, President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump suspended political hostilities on Tuesday and stood together at Ground Zero in Manhattan to mark the 23rd anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Trump and Harris — who met only Tuesday night during their fiery debate — even shook hands for the second time in less than 24 hours, a gesture apparently orchestrated by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance was also in attendance, dressed in a navy suit, white shirt and scarlet tie to match Trump’s signature outfit. For a few nostalgic seconds, the memorial ceremony evoked a now-forgotten national gathering in the terrible days of grief and shock following the attacks.

9/11 is far enough in the past now to have a historical tinge. But for anyone who lived through it, those days remain visceral. The pain never fades for those who lost loved ones in the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, in the Pentagon, on the four fuel-laden planes weaponized by al Qaeda terrorists, or for those whose family members died in the wars that followed 9/11. A casual glance at a clock that reads 8:46 a.m., the moment the first plane hit the North Tower on a crisp September morning in New York, can trigger memories of a day in the early 21st century that will live in infamy.

The gathering of former, current and future American leaders on Tuesday was a reminder of the ongoing political fallout from the attacks.

The subsequent bloody overseas wars launched by the George W. Bush administration in the wake of the attacks contributed to a public fatigue and loss of faith in government institutions that Trump was able to exploit in his own rise to power. Many of the American soldiers who served and died multiple times in the global war on terror were reservists from small towns in America, or what has now become Trump country. And two decades after the US invasion of Afghanistan, the war is at the center of another presidential campaign, as Harris and Trump blame each other for the chaotic US withdrawal in 2021 and a political controversy rages over the deaths of 13 US service members at Kabul airport.

A series of unlikely political consequences can also be traced to the attacks. But before Bush’s support collapsed after the wars turned into quagmires, there might not have been a path for a young Illinois senator, Barack Obama, who opposed the Iraq war, to become president. In a sense, Trump’s presidency was born of a backlash against the first black president. And Biden probably wouldn’t have been president without Trump and the chaos he caused. If Biden hadn’t been recalled to serve at his advanced age, there probably wouldn’t have been an opening for his vice president, Harris, to run this year after the president withdrew his reelection bid amid public concern about his acumen. Vance, who served in Iraq as a combat correspondent, meanwhile is the first of a generation of post-9/11 recruits on a major-party presidential ticket.

Nearly a quarter century later, renewed superpower competition has replaced terrorism as the most prominent geopolitical threat. Osama bin Laden has been dead for more than 13 years. And, to underscore the times, some young voters born after 9/11 will be holding their second presidential election this year.

But the world’s worst terrorist attack still has a powerful psychological and political impact and is deeply etched in the American soul, as we must realize every September.