STARTING TOMORROW: Red and blue "Blue Christmas!"

MONDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2023

Red and blue far, far apart: We thought this morning of two favorite scenes from a pair of Bronze Age epics.

The first scene occurs in Book IX of The Iliad, the great epic poem of war. The great commander Agamemnon is threatening to abandon the ten-year effort to scale the towering walls of Troy. A headstrong young soldier angrily disputes great Agamemnon in counsel.

A ten-year effort seems to be coming undone. An older leader scrambles to his feet and issues a timeless warning:

...Lost to the clan,
lost to the hearth, lost to the old ways, that one
who lusts for the horror of war with his own people.

With his speech, Nestor reunites and rallies the troops and pulls the Achaeans through.

Within the crackpot moral order of Bronze Age warfare, Nestor's speech constitutes a timeless warning about the dangers of angry division within an established community. We thought of Nestor's speech to the troops as we perused this morning's New York Times—but also as we watched videotape of Donald Trump's latest remarks.

The tape was played at the very start of today's Morning Joe. Just click here, then click again on "Trump becoming more explicit on how he wants to take down U.S. democracy."

On Saturday night, Candidate Trump spoke at a campaign event in Durham, New Hampshire. The videotape, and other transcripts, show him saying these things:

TRUMP (12/16/23): We're like a rocket ship. It was like a rocket ship sent by Kim Jong-un. Just like that. Who was very nice, I will tell you....He's not so fond of this administration, but he is fond of me.

[...]

Vladimir Putin, of Russia, says that Biden's, and this is a quote, "politically motivated persecution of his political rival, is very good for Russia because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracies."

[...]

And they're all laughing at us. Viktor Orban, the highly respected prime minister of Hungary, said Trump is the man who can save the Western world.

Let's state what is blindingly obvious:

Before the coming of Trump, it would have been extremely odd to see a major American political figure speaking in any such ways about these authoritarian rulers. 

Trump also offered these remarks at the rally in question. He was speaking about the current state of immigration into this country:

TRUMP: They're poisoning the blood of our country. That's what they've done. They poisoned mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world, they're coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world, they're pouring into our country.

Trump's reference to "mental institutions and prisons all over the world" doesn't quite seem to parse. That said, the general thrust of his commentary was clear—and he was speaking in ways which would have been hard to imagine even a few years ago.

Judged by conventional political norms, the former president's remarks are extremely unusual. That doesn't automatically mean that his various views are "wrong" on the merits—and it doesn't tell us how American voters will react to his views and remarks.

There was no sign that people at the New Hampshire rally were troubled by Trump's remarks. Having said that, we'll also say this:

In our view, one Morning Joe guest made a striking remark of her own at precisely 6:10 this morning. That Morning Joe analyst was Elise Jordan, a good and decent person. 

As a general matter, Jordan is a never-Trump former Republican official. She responded in the following way to a question from Morning Joe's Jonathan Lemire:

LEMIRE (12/18/23): This is a moment, Elise, where we have Trump quoting Vladimir Putin. We have him praising Xi, Orban, Kim Jong-Un. We have him referring to January 6 convicts as "hostages," and we have him using language that evokes what Adolf Hitler used to say. ...My question is, are we sure Americans are going to care?

JORDAN: I don't think so. I think that you're going to have, a week before the election, maybe 50 million low-information voters voting on how they feel the economy is doing right then, that week in October 2024.

Oof. Jordan continued from there. We were struck by her remark about the "low-information voters" who are going to go out and vote for Trump.

In truth, we're all low-information voters here—"A Merry Christmas to us all," every one! In our view, there may be certain areas—immigration may be one such area—where we blue tribe voters may imaginably be more underinformed than corresponding red tribe voters.

We feel quite sure that Elise Jordan is a thoroughly good, decent person. That said:

To our eye and ear, her remark captured one of the ways our own blue tribe, down through the decades, has helped create the dangerous situation which now obtains in these darkest nights of the year.

Quite famously, Elvis Presley once looked ahead to a "blue, blue Christmas." In this current Christmas week, it seems to us that our warring political tribes—red and blue alike, yet far, far apart—are fashioning a dangerous and very blue holiday season.

We're thinking of the vast separation which now exists between our red and blue political tribes. We're also thinking of fascinating work in this morning's New York Times—work about the chasms which are opening up between those of us who are "pro-Palestinian" and those of us who are "pro-Israel."

Happy holidays to us all, every one! All of us find ourselves caught in a deeply challenging time:

For ourselves. we regard Candidate Trump as deeply, profoundly disordered. That said, tens of millions of friends and neighbors—and fellow citizens—think the same thing about President Biden.

Meanwhile, events involving Israel, Hamas and Gaza are creating angry domestic divides which are also extremely hard to negotiate. We'll try to discuss our flailing nation's blue, blue Christmas all through the rest of the week.

"Lost to the hearth," Nestor said, "that one who lusts for the horror of war with his own people."

From the Bronze Age down to the present day, it's a timeless word of warning. The seasoned leader went on to say this:

"Tonight's the night that rips our ranks to shreds or that pulls us through."

Tomorrow: Dueling reports in the Times