For a while, on this date, there would be a ton of "never forget 9/11" stuff. That has largely faded. That doesn't mean that people forgot. Maybe it just sunk in that you don't have to yell at people to remember a major historical event.
To be honest, I'm pretty happy that the forced sanctity on this date has faced. I don't think Americans should ever forget what happened on September 11, 2001, but I also don't think Americans ever will. Having it become a regular date on the calendar is not a bad thing. We can still remember historical events without losing our minds and demanding everyone honor the day in exactly the way that some small group of people want it to be honored. During the Bush-era anniversaries, conservatives were completely insufferable on this day. I mean more than normal.
My archives go back to June 2003. So I was curious how many times I wrote a post about the 9/11 anniversary on September 11th. Here is what I found: I posted about 9/11 (the significance of the date/anniversary/attack) on September 11th in 2004, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2019. So fairly common in the Bush-era. In fact, the only reason I missed 2003 and 2005 is because I happened to be traveling and, as would happen in those days, the blog turned more into a travelogue. 9/11 was mentioned incidentally in my September 11, 2003 post from Uzbekistan, but it wasn't mentioned at all in my September 11, 2005 post from Syria.
