Hello, Danger Corps! It’s Friday, September 11, 2026, and today marks 25 years since nearly 3,000 people were killed on September 11, 2001. A quarter-century is a strange amount of time. Long enough for the children of 2001 to have families and careers of their own. Long enough that, today, roughly 100 million Americans, of the nearly 342.6 million, are around the age of 25 or younger, making up an enormous part of the country that was not alive when those planes struck, or was too young to remember it. That’s around 30%, and for them, September 11 is history, not something personally experienced. For millions of others, it is still a morning of mourning they can picture almost minute by minute.
America did rebuild. The Memorial opened 10 years later in 2011. The Museum followed in 2014, and One World Trade Center opened that November. Rebuilding a skyline took more than a decade, but for many families, first responders, veterans, and witnesses, that work of rebuilding never really ends.
But one message from those first awful days deserves to survive every generation: we were supposed to stand together.
That did not mean pretending Americans were all alike. In fact, six days after the attacks, Republican President George W. Bush stood inside the Islamic Center of Washington and reminded frightened Americans that Muslims were their neighbors, doctors, soldiers, parents and fellow citizens, and that terrorism did not belong to an entire religion. How low the bar has fallen since then.
That history makes this week’s fight over New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani difficult to ignore. A petition seeking to keep the city’s first Muslim mayor away from the 25th anniversary ceremony has surpassed 100,000 signatures, and Republicans including Rudy Giuliani and former Gov. George Pataki have urged him not to attend. Other 9/11 families have defended his right to be there and asked that the anniversary remain focused on honoring those who were lost. Mamdani, meanwhile, designated September 11 a citywide Day of Remembrance and Service and says he plans to attend to pay his respects.
Even though we all wish Trump’s name could remain out of ONE story, it’s worth speaking the real truths, and that’s not meaning his “truth social insider tips.” President Trump has also pledged that America will “never forget.” But this week he added himself rather dramatically to the story, saying that after the attacks he brought construction workers to Ground Zero, worked there “long and hard,” and at one point was carried away by firefighters because a nearby building was unstable. The problem is that those accounts have not been independently verified. The earliest known photos or video place Trump near Ground Zero on September 13, 2001, and former FDNY officials have said they had no knowledge of him bringing the large crews he has described. The White House has of course not produced evidence confirming the firefighter-rescue story.
At the same time, his own former chief of staff, retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, has publicly said Trump made deeply disparaging remarks about wounded troops, prisoners of war, Gold Star families and Americans killed in service. Trump has, as per usual, denied and attacked those accounts.
And perhaps that is the lesson worth carrying forward. “Never Forget” cannot only mean remembering what was done to America. It also means remembering what Americans promised one another afterward: courage over fear, neighbors over suspicion, service over selfishness, and citizenship larger than race, religion or party.
America has been through terrorism, wars, recessions, a pandemic, political violence and profound division. Today our institutions are again undergoing enormous change; even the Heritage Foundation said this summer that about 53% of Project 2025’s proposals had been adopted, while outside trackers describe hundreds of related federal actions as completed or underway. People can, and emphatically do, disagree over those policies and what they mean for the country and what we stand for.
We still belong to each other. We’re grateful for each one of you. We hold onto the sacrifices of all, and we remember this day 25 years ago. We must pass forward the message of unity and love, and hold on tight to our individual patriotism. What that looks like for each of us will be different; we should not be expected to act a specific way, especially when life, and all it’s happenings, are different for each of us. Be you, and let others be others. That should be a pretty simple concept, and that’s one worth continuing to fight for.
We are so appreciative of those who wrote in with trust, openness, honesty, and heart. Your stories are heard, seen, and we all know that rebuilding in our minds is harder than just scheduling a construction project. So today we are bringing a mix of memes and personal accounts from our very own Danger Corps members, and the usual dangerous shenanigans to lighten up a heavy day. Remembrance, Love, and Action will prevail.
Let’s get dangerous! 💙
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📞Shay shares Intuitions and Impressions of our Lying President
Republicans Have 10 Excuses to Avoid Trump 😆
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90 Minutes of Americans LOSING IT Over Trump 🤣
Back to back calls to The People’s Hotline will make you laugh, cry and feel inspired.
For today, we bring you a gallery of comments, stories, and memories of the Danger Corps all brought to you through shout@thedangerousones.com. Sorry if you wrote in and we didn’t get to post the whole message, or didn’t get to it at all. But I assure you, we read them all, and will continue to find ways to get your voices heard.
Thank you again everyone for sharing, and thank you to those reading. These real moments never leave us. Here’s to encouraging us all to get this guy, and all his sycophants, out the right way. With our words, our found evidence, and our VOTE. Our memories guide our principles, so if we truly “never forgot,” then I think we have a responsibility to fight, just like all those in service who stood, and still stand for our freedoms that are now on a Trump-branded chopping block.
Do not fear, the future is always near. And I have a gut feeling that the block they’re using to mince our lives is going to crumble, just like the crackers they keep putting on the recall shelves.😆Once the block is gone, they’ll be swinging at air, which is basically what they’re already doing, and I can’t wait for them to feel what it’s like to have nothing. We all know a good full life isn’t about money, it’s about the connections we make along the journey. And their true connections are about as empty as our wallets. 🤣
So with that, thanks for your time today. Enjoy the day, because strides are being taken everyday by people we’ve never seen, never heard, never met. And the memories of those lost still stand for something. So Let’s Keep Dangerously Standing.🧡💙
Hold on to your light Danger Corps! 🌞
Together, we’ll guide more to the Dangerous Side.
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the humor is keeping me sane. still missing Stephen Colbert. he kept me sane in firsts term, part of second. Happy to have found you
9/11/2001 was so a horrifying day!