PROPHECY: Has "our democracy" already died?

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 2024

The Iliad meets The Sixth Sense: Once again, we're prepared to admit it:

We awoke on Saturday thinking of a set of immortal lines.

As of yesterday, we were regretting the fact that we did! But as we first admitted on Monday, the lines in question came from Book Six of the Iliad, with Hector telling Andromache, "his generous wife," why he had to return to the battle which was raging on the plains outside Troy:

And tall Hector nodded, his helmet flashing:
All this weighs on my mind too, dear woman.
But I would die of shame to face the men of Troy
and the Trojan women trailing their long robes
if I would shrink from battle now, a coward.
Nor does the spirit urge me on that way.
I've learned it all too well. To stand up bravely,
always to fight in the front ranks of Trojan soldiers.
winning my father great glory, glory for myself.
For in my heart and soul I also know this well:
the day will come when sacred Troy must die,
Priam must die and all his people with him
...

As November's election approached—as next week's debate approached—we awoke on Saturday morning thinking of Hector's prophecy. Also, we thought of a corresponding prophecy, one widely heard in today's Blue America:

If Candidate Trump returns to the White House, "our democracy" itself may die.

("Our democracy," such as it is—such as it ever has been.)

By yesterday, we were sorry that we had decided to focus on those rhyming prophecies. 

What may be coming to our own Blue America is hard to discuss. As we noted on Monday, here's what happened to sacred Troy after Hector was slain by Achilles, with his body dragged through the dust behind the rage-filled warrior's chariot:

The whole poem has been moving toward this duel between the two champions, but there has never been any doubt about the outcome. The husband and father, the beloved protector of his people, the man who stands for the civilized values of the rich city, its social and religious institutions, will go down to defeat at the hands of this man who has no family, who in a private quarrel has caused the death of many of his own fellow soldiers, who now in a private quarrel thinks only of revenge...

The images of that night assault—the blazing palaces, the blood running in the streets, old Priam butchered at the altar, Cassandra raped in the temple, Hector's baby son thrown from the battlements, his wife Andromache dragged off to slavery—all this, foreshadowed in the Iliad, will be stamped indelibly on the consciousness of the Greeks throughout their history, immortalized in lyric poetry, in tragedy, on temple pediments and painted vases, to reinforce the stern lesson of Homer's presentation of the war: that no civilization, no matter how rich, no matter how refined, can long survive once it loses the power to meet force with equal or superior force.

According to legend, so it went when sacred Troy died—when the more civilized Hector fell to the powerful, rage-filled warrior who had only revenge on his mind.

As every later Greek citizen knew, Hector's prophecy in Book Six turned out to be accurate. Our current, rhyming prophecy starts to be tested on CNN next Thursday night.

Here in Blue America, we perceive ourselves to be the more "refined" of our nation's dueling civilizations. We picture ourselves as the ones who embody the "civilized values" of the Iliad's Troy, while our fellow citizens in Red America are the ones who have aligned themselves with a man who (in effect) has no family, has caused the death of many of his own fellow soldiers, who now in a private quarrel thinks only of revenge.

T our ear, a lot of rhyming is going on in the present circumstance. Also, we'll admit it! We're fascinate by the varied "sexual politics" on display in that first "poem of war."

In modern parlance, Troy's civilization is portrayed as the civilization of "family values." By way of contrast, the invading Achaean armies embody a civilization of "toxic masculinity."

In his lengthy introduction to the 1990 Robert Fagles translation, Professor Knox sketches the contrast. In this passage, he's discussing Hector's speech to Andromache, the speech we've briefly excerpted above:

[Andromache] begs him to cease fighting in the forefront of the hand-to-hand battle on the plain, to adopt a defensive strategy and command from the walls. Hector's sad reply reveals his tragic dilemma. His feeling for her prompts him to accept her suggestion but he cannot do it. He is the leader, the commander, as his name suggests: Hector means "Holder." He is the one who holds the Trojan defense steady by his example and he must fight in the front ranks. In any case, the standards of martial valor by which he has always lived will not permit it.

[...]

But deep in his heart he knows that the effort is futile, that Troy is doomed. He realizes what that will mean for her and hopes that he will not live to hear her cries as she is led off to slavery. He is distracted from this dark vision of the future by the terrified cries of his own baby son, who recoils screaming from the bronze-clad man who moves to embrace him. Forebodings of the future, no matter how well-founded, have to be brushed aside if life is to go on, and Hector now speaks in more hopeful terms as he prays that his son will grow up to be a greater man than his father and then comforts his sorrowing wife. This scene reveals the greatness of Hector as a complete man; we see not only the devotion of the warrior who does his duty and fights for his people, even though he knows that they are doomed, but also his greatness as a husband and fathera striking contrast with the atmosphere of the armed camp on the shore.

The scenes in question must be among the greatest ever hatched by the western world's collective intelligence. But in that account by Professor Knox, we see the clash of civilizations in the Iliad applied to the realm of sexual politics, with Hector portrayed as a loving husband and father, Achilles as a rage-filled, highly toxic killing machine.

For ourselves, we think that Professor Knox overstated the greatness of Hector's sexual politics—his greatness "as a complete man." More on that before the week is done. For now, we'll leave it at this:

Here in Blue America, we tend to portray our nation's current culture clash in terms which resemble those lodged in the quoted passage. 

Good God! How we've been inclined, down through the years, to flatter ourselves for our stances in our nation's culture wars, and to flatter no one but ourselves!

Meanwhile, without providing a spoiler alert, we've given away the outcome! After sacred Troy dies, noble Hector's generous wife is dragged away in slavery. Nor does the horror end there:

Their baby son—"the darling of his eyes and radiant as a star"—is thrown to his death from the high walls of the defeated city.

Hector's sister is raped in the temple. Priam is butchered at the altar, in line with his noble son's prophecy. 

The more refined, more civilized society dies at the hands of the angrier, more primitive gang of lunatics who have been gathered at the shore, demanding that they get Helen back.

What will happen if President Bidne can't hold his own next Thursday night? Within the context of modern framing, Blue America's rhyming prophecy foresees a similar end for "our democracy," such as it ever has been.

We still want to show you the lines in which Hector and Andromache converse in Book Six, in the several famous scenes which occur before Hector rejoins the battle. (He returns home safely that day.)

We still want to suggest that the sexual politics of that scene brilliantly echoes our own today—our own sexual politics, to the extent that we in Blue America have ever had any such creature.

We Blues! Persistently, we flatter ourselves with the idea that we possess such civilized values. For today, we'll leave it at this:

"Our democracy," such as it ever has been, has already died!  It died in the pages of our childish journalism over the course of the past forty years, as we denizens of Blue America persistently failed to see what was occurring.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but those of us in Blue America are "people people" too. We aren't the brilliant, superior, civilized beings of our fertile imaginations

There's nothing wrong with that! But as in The Sixth Sense, so too here:

"Our democracy" is already dead! It's been dead for quite a while. We just aren't able to see this!

Tomorrow: We soldier on


68 comments:


  1. I would like to know more about all those real but fake videos with our great president seemingly doing stupid shit. Where he appears to be braindead, but is in fact perfectly cognitive. I like reading explanations why things aren't what they look like.

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    1. Yes, Bindenience. Can't get enough of it.

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  2. Anouk Aimée has died.

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    1. William H Donaldson died last week.

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    2. Au revoir to Anouk.

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  3. Gosh I am really glad Bob has pointed out the comparisons to our situation and classic poetry. I find it very relevant! It really shines a light on a lot of things! Given the way Bob has sized up the rest of our situation, the pertinent comparisons are just overwhelming!!!

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  4. "PROPHECY: Has "our democracy" already died?"

    It hasn't, but maybe Somerby is even less in touch with reality than Trump is. Today Tom Sullivan at Digby's blog talks about magical thinking. That may describe what is happening with Somerby too:

    https://digbysblog.net/2024/06/19/manifesting-reality-trump-style/

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  5. If Bob would no longer employ
    Analogies to Greece and Troy
    And spend each day screamin’
    That Trump is a demon
    A change people here would enjoy.

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    1. Somerby isn't screaming at Trump. He is excusing him.

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  6. "Here in Blue America, we tend to portray our nation's current culture clash in terms which resemble those lodged in the quoted passage. "

    This is entirely untrue. We are not sorrowing at an upcoming loss. We do not consider it manly (obligatory to honor) to fight hand-to-hand in the front ranks leaving women to be enslaved. The left does not value or embody the traits described by Knox, but the far right, the extremist white supremacist right has adopted ancient texts like these as their ideal of manhood. Somerby has displaced these adolescent yearnings to be manly onto so-called Blue America, and we do not accept his projections. The loss of testosterone to the point of suntanning one's balls belongs to Tucker Carlson and the gaggle of men who worry about low-T and the sissification of men by encroachments of women's rights. That is a right wing thing and it is unhealthy to the point of being labeled toxic masculinity. In our culture wars, the left is against that garbage while the right thinks it is fighting for noble Hector, like Somerby gushes today over the exemplary behavior of abandoning one's wife and child to fight with honor.

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  7. "What will happen if President Bidne can't hold his own next Thursday night?"

    President Biden will presumably do better than Prez Bidne.

    How can Somerby watch Trump try to speak and think there is any chance Biden won't win the debate (not simply "hold his own")? How does one how one's own against a lunatic? Trump will be upset when his mic is turned off and become angry, which will make him even more incoherent. He may walk off mid-debate if he gets frustrated enough.

    Biden has already won, judging by the anxiety underlying Trump's speculations. Many are predicting Trump won't go through with it. His supporters think he should skip it, because he can only lose. Biden is coherent and competent. Trump is a moron. Debates tend to make such differences pretty obvious.

    So why is Somerby talking about Biden "holding his own"? Perhaps he thinks that this is a standing contest (in which case Biden is plenty fit to stand for 1-1/2 hrs, as he did at his State of the Union speech. Trump likes to lean on the podium, but I doubt any of his handlers has the nerve to tell him not to do that, nor will he remember to use his own feet instead of his elbows to stand up.

    The main problem is that no matter how Trump performs, his supporters will think he did fine and blame any problems on others, including the moderators but also Biden, for rigging the rules or some such. No one on the right is big on accepting responsibility for anything.

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  8. We have no sexual politics? How about this one from 1792?

    A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft.

    https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/wollstonecraft-a-vindication-of-the-rights-of-woman

    "Mary Wollstonecraft raises a very interesting point about why humans allow themselves to be ruled by others. This is question which occupied Edmund Burke and David Hume as well. Her answer was that, just as men had “willingly” submitted to aristocratic rule for centuries, so too had women “willingly” submitted to their husbands in unequal marriages. Is the habituation to rule then the justification for that rule by others?"

    We on the left will not submit to autocratic rule by Trump or anyone else in our democracy. That we have not yet submitted suggests that democracy is not dead, as Somerby claims. The right wing is so afraid of other people that it buys guns in excess of individual needs in order to feel powerful. Somerby mistakes bluster for courage but a person who has courage does not need to behave like the Achaeans nor like Hector who feels driven to the front lines. Somerby's admiration for these craven men suggests he has no interest in exploring the nature of freedom or the means by which people govern themselves without violence. In that, he is identical to Trump and his followers, and that is not only sad, it suggests he has little self-awareness and no understanding of what today's political struggles are about.

    But he sounds willing to take it out on women, given half an excuse. Men have pushed down women in order to feel bigger and hairier and more manly, but that isn't going to work any more, because we DO NOT live in a society like Troy and women are tired of supporting men's neurotic needs.

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    1. What should Hector have done?

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    2. Let his wife and the other women handle it. They’d have routed the Achaeans in a month. Tops.

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    3. Cecelia, you mock feminists.

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    4. Cecelia, you mock feminists.

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    5. Anonymouse 2:50pm, you’re not a feminist, you’re a silly twit.

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    6. You’re a silly twat.

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    7. 1. Given back Helen and apologized for her defection.
      2. Bought off the army with tribute, as most cities in that time period did in order to escape sacking.
      3. Stood and defended their women and children instead of fighting symbolic hand-to-hand battles on the beach.
      4. There was no need for Hector leave the castle in order to form a front line. They could have defended the castle from the walls, as people did against the Vikings and similar marauders.
      5. As pointed out elsewhere, there is no description in the Iliad about how the Achaeans were able to live off the land outside Troy for 10 years, without any resupply. That makes this sound like a tall tale, not anything historical. But you undermine a siege by closing off their access to food and water, just as the attackers are trying to do to the castle itself. You don't send your best fighters down to the beach, leaving the castle undefended. So this is a stupid story to begin with.
      6. The Achaeans weren't there to populate Troy. You negotiate to find out what they did want and then compromise. I suspect Helen was a pretext but whoever wrote the Iliad was not being realistic but creating comic book heroes for men to listen to and feel vicariously manly about. The abandonment of women and children is perhaps wish fulfillment in the fictional Iliad.
      7. In historical situations, women fought alongside men.
      8. It seems likely that in 10 years, there would have been an escape tunnel used to sneak out and resupply the castle that could also have been used to evacuate non-combatants.
      9. In hopeless situations where women will be raped or tortured or enslaved, men tend to kill them first or give them the means to kill themselves should a battle be lost. Hector didn't care enough to do that, apparently. If you love someone you don't leave them to suffer.

      These considerations are why I consider the Iliad to be a silly book, unrealistic and useful to men as fantasy, much like porn. We have a modern equivalent of action-adventure violence porn that is watched primarily by men. It is just as unrealistic. Glorifying this by pretending it is great literature or historically accurate is fake and conceals the motives of men who like this stuff, such as Somerby.

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    8. I agree with point 5. Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics. Homer was an amateur.

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    9. The Iliad is the thirty-eighth greatest book ever written.

      https://thegreatestbooks.org/

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  9. If our democracy has already died, how did all those 1/6 MAGAs get defeated in yesterday's primaries?

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  10. One hundred and ninety-two Republican members of Congress voted to restore the Confederate Memorial to Arlington National Cemetery. That's eighty-nine percent of the Republican conference.

    https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/06/republican-historical-memory

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    1. Dems focus on symbols. Reps focus on policies that actually help blacks. E.g. school choice, fighting crime, and controlling illegal immigration. That’s why so many blacks are moving from Biden to Trump

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    2. We'll know blacks are moving from Biden to Trump, when the GOP stops suppressing the votes of black people.
      Personally, I look forward to it, not only because it's fairer, but also to hear the crying from white Republican voters that their party has abandoned them.

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    3. "Reps focus on policies that actually help blacks. "

      David in Cal,
      This is something that should lead every Fox News telecast from now until the November election.

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    4. David, the Confederate memorial is a symbol. Republicans voted for it, Democrats voted against.

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    5. "E.g. school choice, fighting crime, and controlling illegal immigration"

      And whether it's better to be electrocuted than eaten by a shark.

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    6. Worst of all: being attacked by an electric eel.

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    7. @2:04 Exactly. Dems gave symbolic help to blacks by opposing a Confederate monument

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    8. David, the Republicans supported a symbol.

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    9. What should the Democrats have done? Should they have been bipartisan by voting with the Republicans to honor the Confederates? Or did they act correctly in opposing the monument?

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    10. @5:45 I already said what the Dems should have done. They should have retained and added to all of Trump's measures that controlled illegal immigration. They should have supported alternative education and vouchers. They should have prosecuted and imprisoned criminals, including black criminals, who prey on poor blacks in the inner city.

      Oh, and they should stop exaggerating the racism in this country. Their exaggerations discourage blacks from fully taking advantage of their many, many opportunities.

      It doesn't matter what Dems do regarding Confederate statues. Removing these statues has no real effect on actual human beings.

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    11. David, it was a specific bill in the House of Representatives. It would have restored the Confederate monument in the Arlington National Cemetery. The vast majority of Republicans, including the entire leadership, supported this bill. The Democrats voted against it. Should they have voted for it?

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    12. Although they cannot relitigate the civil war, Republican lawmakers can symbolically show their solidarity with a group of people that waged it and seceded from the Union in order to own people. Putting a statue back up engages them in this. It takes their minds collectively off Hunter Biden's dick. It's a wholesome activity, comparatively, and keeps them out of trouble when they could otherwise be dismantling Medicare or Social Security. We should all be thankful that they have found such an innocuous hobby.

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    13. "...including black criminals..." Not to nit pick here but I think that the group you singled out is relatively small compared with, let's say "...white collar criminals...". Nonetheless, I get where you're coming from, scapegoating the black community specifically. You'd probably vote for Rick Scott, a fiscal conservative MAGA, although he ran a company that bilked Medicare out of billions of taxpayer dollars and earned himself 170 million dollars doing so. Lilly white dude, loves Trump, incidentally. But let's always focus on black on black inner city crime because, well, let's face it: it's not your favorite demographic. And that's being euphemistic. I might (hypothetically, mind you) hate Hispanics and be tempted to single out the Puerto Rican variety and their version of inner city gang culture. But I think you have made the right choice, given your proclivities, which are implacable. Nicely done, as always.

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    14. Sorry immigrants. This county is too full of people who support the overthrow of the country with their admiration for the Confederacy and the January 6th insurrectionists, to let you in.

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    15. Once one realizes how much immigrants love the United States of America, it makes complete sense why the Right wants to limit immigration.

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    16. 9:31
      https://www.dps.texas.gov/sites/default/files/documents/crimereports/24/cit_2024_q1_trends.pdf

      The massive inflow of the criminal element into Texas during the Biden administration has resulted in yearly decreased crime rates as per Texas statistics. So much for the Trump/Republican narrative, which as usual, is completely fabricated.

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    17. Your link compares Q1 2024 vs. Q1 2023. Not Biden administration vs. Trump administration numbers.

      Besides, since 2021 the border in Texas has been controlled by Texas national guard (operation Lone Star).

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  11. People who fought in the Civil War for the wrong side did so for a variety of reasons and intentions, all misguided. They are Americans and they should be remembered, if only for that reason.

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    1. Just like there should be statues of leading Nazis all over Germany.

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    2. Anonymouse 4:56pm, there’s a difference between memorializing Germany soldiers who fought in WWII from doing that on behalf of Nazi regime.

      We have memorials to several Founders who owned slaves. We’ve managed to understand human progression and to make distinctions between dictators and John Doe.

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    3. Should we honor the brave Germans who shot down British and American bombers that were incinerating their neighborhoods?

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    4. Quaker in a BasementJune 19, 2024 at 6:30 PM

      "They are Americans and they should be remembered, if only for that reason."

      They were not Americans during the fighting. They gave up their citizenship to form a whole new country that immediately went to war with America.

      Before they could become Americans once again they had to take a formal oath of loyalty. Confederates were Confederates, not Americans.

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    5. Cecelia, progress is a different word, with a different meaning from "progression". I strongly believe that Eastern European trolls who are going to comment on American websites, should have a better command of English than you do.

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    6. Most Americans have never heard of this Hitler guy. Probably because there are no statues to remind them of his history.

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    7. Who is arguing there shouldn't be a statue of Colin Kaepernick at the Arlington National Cemetery?

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  13. Anonymouse 5:41pm, I wouldn’t expect that. I have no quarrel with Germany putting up a memorial to their dead solders, many of them were forced to fight.

    QiB, the South felt that were being left behind, not the other way around. That wasn’t accurate.

    It was a terrible war and time, and families, Americans, were broken apart via a hideous institution that had been part of the lives of people who were celebrated as American heroes, and who fought in wars that took the lands of Native Americans and lands on this continent that had been claimed by other countries.

    None of it is pretty. Around the world, amongst red and yellow, black, and white, most of it was not pretty.

    We’ve gathered our war dead. All of them. Nuff said

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    1. David can't bring himself to say that the Democrats were right when they voted against restoring the Confederate monument in the Arlington National Cemetery, and that the Republicans were wrong to support it.

      I invite you to say that, in this vote, the Democrats were right, and the Republicans were wrong.

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    2. Memorials are not just to people who died but to those who showed bravery or were leaders or did something important during the war. Trying to kill Union soldiers doesn't count.

      Where is the memorial to the dead slaves?

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    3. "the South felt that were being left behind, not the other way around"

      I have no clue what you mean to say here. I can make no sense of this sentence.

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    4. Be patient, QiB. Cecelia is not a native speaker of English.

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    5. Nuff said= No mas

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  14. The South, Cecelia, seceded from the Union. They had their own flag and fought for the right to own people under that flag. Their own separate government. That is not complicated. No one left them behind. They left. No need for revisionist sugar coating.

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    1. She was perhaps never told the truth in school.

      If she is a troll working in a Russian troll farm, then she has no serious knowledge of American history aside from Russian propaganda.

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    2. 8:19 Soros doesn’t pay me a plug nickel to give the likes of Cecelia the benefit of the doubt. If she had grown up in a charter school nurtured by Ron DeSantis that would be one thing. She would know quite well that slavery had its advantages and that unemployed blacks should be volunteering to resurrect that Confederate statue. She would also know better than to ever utter the words climate and change within a country mile of each other. But Cecelia is not that young. She comes by her ideas in spite of what she was taught, much to her credit, or so she thinks.

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    3. @Unamused 8:03 PM
      It doesn't matter what was written on their citizenship papers (if they had them).

      What is your (or Mr. Soros') problem with people remembering their fallen soldiers? Why would it be any of your business?

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    4. They can remember what they want. We just don’t want to honor traitors in our National Cemeteries.

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    5. But it's their National Cemetery too. If you want a separate one, organize a special woke cemetery, and bury your dead there.

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    6. The Woke cemetery is for the January 6th insurrectionists. Can't wait to see it full.

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    7. Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson's "I (heart) Antifa" t-shirt is leading to lots of questions already addressed by Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson's "I (heart) Antifa" t-shirt.

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    8. 7:30 They seceded from the Union and fought for the right to own people. So no, it is not their cemetery to be honored with statues. They are buried where they were buried. No one is petitioning to remove gravesites.

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    9. No, they haven't seceded from the Union; not yet anyway. They are still natural born citizens of the USA. So, yes, it is their cemetery.

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    10. 10:28 Are you the least bit aware of what is being discussed here?? The subject is Republican politicians wanting to resurrect statues of Confederates in our national cemetery. What do you think is being discussed??

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    11. While we’re at it, why not fly a confederate flag over the Capitol Building?

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