After the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the country was united for a period as citizens in every town and city rallied around first responders, regardless of political affiliation.

People wore NYPD and FDNY ball caps in tribute to the men in blue. Having a son or daughter decide on law enforcement or firefighting as a career choice brought a sense of pride to families.

Robert Tilearcio’s father was working for the FDNY when terrorists attacked the twin towers in Manhattan, then spent months working on the piles. Like many others who survived that day, he became sick from exposure to the toxic dust and died last year from 9/11-related cancers.

Last September, Robert was part of a class of new firefighters who achieved their dreams of honoring their fallen loved ones by continuing their families’ legacy of service.

During his speech in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, last Friday, President Trump honored all current uniformed first responders who sacrifice their lives daily to keep Americans safe. He also introduced us to David DeMatto, a retired Chicago police officer and a current officer in the Navy Reserves. On 9/11, he drove from Chicago to help his brethren working at ground zero, experiencing the sights and smells that are forever etched in his mind.

Trump talked of the mood in the country immediately after the 9/11 attacks, when police officers and firefighters were revered as true heroes and the military was appreciated in a manner not seen in decades. Common people found new meaning in values like friendship, kindness and selflessness, the president said.

That sense of pride in God and country and the desire to maintain our individual freedoms have eroded, especially in Democratically led large cities like New York, where over 400 city police officers, Port Authority workers, and firefighters lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001.

Relations between Mayor Bill De Blasio and the police have been deteriorating from the time of his election in 2014. Late that year, during a funeral service held for a police officer killed in an ambush shooting, hundreds of officers turned their backs on the mayor as he spoke.

It sent a clear message to the mayor that he did not have the backs of the men in blue.

During last year’s 9/11 anniversary, De Blasio chose to go to the gym and then frequent his favorite French pastry shop rather than attend any memorial events. He marked the solemn occasion with a simple tweet, which caused a social media firestorm.

“That shows more than anything how much he cares for the victims of 9/11,” fumed one responder.

“Your term is our darkest hour,” another tweeted.

De Blasio, meanwhile, has praised and supported the Black Lives Matter movement which specifically targets abolishing the police. In July, while the city experienced chaos and death in its streets and businesses were locked down due to COVID-19, the mayor participated in several Black Lives Matter mural projects, including a street painting in front of Trump Tower.

After a video surfaced showing rioters dumping water on police officers in Brooklyn, who walked away without taking any action, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the city’s Republican mayor from 1994 to 2001, blamed the lawlessness on De Blasio, calling him a “progressive, retrogressive, completely lazy mayor who is destroying the quality of life in the city.”

In an interview last week, former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly explained how people are moving out in significant numbers and that it will take New York City much longer to bounce back from the mayor’s radical policies than from the devastation of the 9/11 attacks. He said De Blasio has lost control of the police department and officers are now reluctant to take the kinds of proactive measures they were doing just or six or eight months ago.

People are anxious and worried about their own safety, as the once proud city is driven into lawlessness and economic ruin by inept leaders like De Blasio.

Unfortunately, it’s the struggling masses who suffer most from the leadership void.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com