BLUES: Was there something we were withholding?

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 2024

Last night, blue tribunes confessed: Can denizens of our own blue tribe come to see ourselves more clearly?

At this site, it has long seemed to us that we badly need to do that. Might we come to see ourselves more clearly through the auspices of classic literature? 

In recent weeks, we've been working with an ancient poem of war as we seek a way to gain such insight. That said, before we turned to the verses of The Iliad, we had cited a poem of war composed by Robert Frost.

Frost recited that poem from memory at President Kennedy's inauguration. (Blinded by sunlight from an overnight blanket of snow, he'd been unable to read a new poem he'd composed for the occasion.)

Blinded by light from the blanket of snow, Frost had to work from memory. He recited a poem of the American revolutionary war, such as that revolution was. 

Frost's poem was called The Gift Outright. The passage we've cited says this:

Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.

In Frost's poem, we colonials finally came to acknowledge the fact that we had somehow come to be Americans. This acknowledgment led to many years of war, the poem says as it continues:

Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.

We were in eighth grade when Frost recited that poem. We don't remember what we thought about it at the time.

At that time, we had a very limited understanding of the various prices which were paid as the land "vaguely [expanded] westward." That said, we memorized the poem for our 8th grade English class.

We were way out in California then, but the New England based poem always stuck in our head.

That said, how about it? Have we denizens of our own blue tribe been withholding something in recent years—something which has made us weak? 

Have we been withholding ourselves? Has that been making us weak?

Last night, in the wake of yesterday's Supreme Court decision, major figures from within our own tribe finally acknowledged that act of withholding—even copped to what's been withheld. 

We'll start at the end of last night's All In as Chris Hayes spoke with David Plouffe, President Obama's campaign manager. To watch their full exchange, you can start by clicking here.

In a decision which rocked the world of blue tribe cable, the Supreme Court had suddenly built another delay into the "insurrection" trial of Candidate Donald J. Trump. 

It now seemed that this trial wouldn't take place before November's election. In the final segment of All In, Plouffe and Hayes spoke with unusual clarity about what this change in the landscape means: 

HAYES (2/28/24): The election is eight months away. All of [Trump's] efforts to wriggle out of legal criminal, criminal legal accountability have sort of worked so far.

Like I said at the top of the show, it's hard to believe that I ever allowed myself to think it would be otherwise, right? 

This is how it's gone, but here's the thing. Here's the thing, the most important thing:

The only thing that has ever worked to stop Donald Trump is you and me. And I mean that in the sense of the will of the voters, Americans, the pro-democracy majority, in Americans showing up at the polls and in the streets and in civil society to protest Donald Trump and to vote against him.

The democracy he wants so badly to destroy, that is the only way that this will end.

We'll have to beat him at the polls! With that, Hayes introduced Plouffe, who quickly engaged in this exchange about the Court's surprising decision:

HAYES: There's a kind of spectatorship quality to the legal stuff that is transfixing and compelling. But there's nothing you or, you know, people can do about what happens there.  

What they can do about it is how they participate in American democracy. And one of the remarkable stories since that first march that first weekend of 2017, is how much people have done.

PLOUFFE: Well, it's a reminder. There is no cavalry. The only cavalry is the voters.

[...]

We are where we are, which is there is going to be no outside event that prevents [Trump] from taking those walks on January 20 and unleashing Hell, if not the end of our democracy. So it's on the voters... 

You just have to find a way to put it together so you keep this guy out of office.

It's up to the voters, Plouffe and Hayes said. There will be no "outside event" which keeps Trump out of the Oval.

Briefly, might we talk? Hayes and his "beloved colleagues" have spent the bulk of the past many years beating the drum in search of some such "outside event."

Hour after hour and day after day, they've sold us the story we very much like—the story in which Trump is magically frog-marched away at the end of one of his trials.

They have refused to talk about the issues which have propelled Trump into the lead over President Biden in a wide array of recent polls. They have pleased us and pleased us and pleased us again, offering us the magical story which keeps us viewers returning for more.

How much are they paid to sell us this corporate product? You aren't allowed to know that! Now, and finally—at long last—Hayes was saying that we'll have to do this ourselves. 

As Plouffe continued, he even said such remarkable things as this:

PLOUFFE: Listen, we have a challenged candidate because of his age. But at the end of the day, he's starting to talk about that more openly...I actually think this helps focus the mind. There is no easy off-ramp. No one else is going to save the country. 

Really? Our blue tribe has a challenged candidate? Suddenly, it's OK to drop the veil of group denial and say such things out loud?

As the conversation continued, Hayes and Plouffe were even more frank about the blue tribe's candidate. 

"Biden has a lot of work to do, no question about that," Plouffe said. This is where the exchange and the program ended:

HAYES: I've got this feeling about— You ever go, let's say you go to a reunion, OK? You haven't seen someone in fifteen years. It's like, "Whoa! Wow! You've aged," or "You've gotten work done," or—

I don't know, there's a million different ways you might see a person and be like, "I haven't seen you in a while and you look different."

It strikes me that there's a little bit of that with Biden....Joe Biden is 81 years old. No one's pretending otherwise. That's what he sounds like.

PLOUFFE: ...Yes, it's not the same guy from 2016. But this is who he is.

HAYES: David Plouffe, it's always great to have you here in person.

Candidate Biden isn't the same guy he was in 2016? Suddenly, we're encouraged to notice such things, even to say them in public?

Hayes and his beloved colleagues have spent the past many years pleasing us with the idea that some "outside event" was going to take Candidate Trump off the field of battle.

Focus on the legal minutia has started at 4 p.m. each day with two hours of Deadline: White House. The focus on the lawsuits and trials has continued on through the night.

In the course of chasing this theme, blue tribe stars have refused to talk about such issues as immigration and the southwest border. As a general matter, they've also been pretending that nothing of consequence has changed with our blue tribe's candidate.

To our eye and ear, President Biden doesn't seem to be the same person he was in 2016. A large majority of the public has told pollsters that they've also noticed some such thing. 

By and large, those voters have also noticed the vast disorder at the border. On blue tribe cable, we've just continued to seek that glorious "outside event."

At 6:08 this morning, Jonathan Lemire was suddenly singing the same new song on Morning Joe. "We can't count on the courts to bail us out," the Morning Joe sidekick now said. 

At 6:15, Joyce Vance followed suit:

"Voters, it's up to you," the legal analyst said. 

At the start of the 7 o'clock hour, the new morning got even newer. There was Jeh Johnson, on Fox & Friends, appearing above a chyron which said this: 

JOHNSON: THERE IS DEFINITELY A BORDER CRISIS NOW

Johnson was director of Homeland Security under President Obama. To watch his presentation, start by clicking here.

For years, there was something we were withholding. In our view, it was making up weak. 

Our stars were withholding a wide array of truthful assessments. This was very good for ratings, for profits and for salaries, but it was making us weak. Let us refresh you with the recent "swing state" survey results we posted yesterday:

• Nevada: Trump +10
• North Carolina: Trump +9
• Georgia: Trump +9
• Arizona: Trump +6
• Pennsylvania: Trump +5
• Wisconsin: Trump +4
• Michigan: Trump +3

The campaign may not turn out that way. Then again, it might!

Along the way, our blue tribe's dream of an "outside event" has been making us weak. At this site, we're going to vote for Candidate Biden, but Candidate Biden is behind in the polls, and for all the ridiculous, pitiful claims that Donald J. Trump called his wife Mercedes, there is zero guarantee that that will ever change.

Can we learn to see ourselves more clearly? The hour is somewhat late.

Tomorrow: "Beloved viewers"

This afternoon: Laura Ingraham, possibly right (but also plainly wrong)