Politics & Power Quote by Michael Enzi

Enzi’s line is a classic post-9/11 rhetorical pivot: take the attackers’ intended spectacle and deny it the payoff. “Symbols of our national unity and strength” gestures at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon without naming them, letting the audience supply the images and grief. Then comes the neat reversal: they “failed to realize” those targets were “just symbols.” That word “just” does heavy work, shrinking the terrorists’ achievement to rubble and smoke while elevating the national self-image above the scene.

The intent is stabilizing, not merely consoling. In a moment when the country felt physically penetrable, Enzi relocates vulnerability away from infrastructure and into character. “The real strength of our nation comes from our people” reframes patriotism as a civic resource rather than a skyline. It’s also a subtle policy posture: resilience language like this prepares the public for sacrifice, endurance, and long campaigns by insisting that the nation’s core can’t be toppled by a single attack. If buildings are “just” symbols, then rebuilding becomes less urgent than reasserting cohesion and purpose.

The subtext is unity as discipline. “Our people” flattens difference in favor of a collective “we,” smoothing over the political fractures that were already present and would soon sharpen. That’s the moral wager of the quote: national strength is not steel and glass, but a shared willingness to keep functioning, keep trusting, and keep believing the country is bigger than what can burn.