September two years ago I was taking a walk by my old school before the school year had started, and I saw the football team gearing up for the season. The coach thought they were slacking with their suicides, so he gets them all in a line and starts yelling at them about 9/11. Some dude he didn't even know but went to school with had died in the towers I guess. Still sad of course. But it's been 20 years, everyone on the team was born after 9/11, no one even knows this guy who died (the coach didn't even really either), and his central thesis (the rant went on for like 10 minutes, you could hear him quite a ways away he was yelling so loud) was that "those people in the towers died so that you could stand on this field today." I hadn't really heard that sort of rhetoric since 2011 when Osama died, about the arab terrorist threat at the door and only the brave men and women in the US military can protect us. Brought back memories of my middle school peers wanting to "carpet bomb the middle east," the racist jokes that came from South Park, Family Guy, and all the shitty stand up comics from around that time, the constant "support our troops" and "never forget" stuff. In 2011 I was in high school and all the jocks and other chuddy people brought American flags to school and just skipped class to stand on the cafeteria tables chanting pro-America slogans after Osama died.

So I think most people are just reacting to the way it's been bludgeoned to death for years, was used to justify really horrible domestic and international policies, and how insufferable most Americans were and are when it comes to 9/11. If someone was to say "hey my dad died in the towers" I doubt most people here would say ha well he deserved it. But 9/11 has moved from just being a tragic event to being a cultural touchstone associated with really horrible things.