“A hero comes from need.” So said MSNBC's Joe Scarborough on Tuesday, during a bizarre Morning Joe segment in which panelists exchanged heartfelt soliloquies and longed for a savior to deliver them from the “disaster” of President Donald Trump.
On an otherwise normal Tuesday, a conversation about author Jon Meacham’s new book abruptly transformed into a deep and emotional exchange. The book, “The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels,” catalyzed a discussion of great leaders who had risen from unassuming origins during a time of need. Among those named and celebrated for their accomplishments were Ulysses S. Grant, Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and others.
MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle observed a “common thread” among the leaders in question, which he described thusly:
They arrive like a miracle, like a flash of sunlight on a stormy day in this country, and they are, almost to a person, people who understand several elements of life that affect everyone who is normal in this country. They understand loss. They understand what it's like to be hurt, to be damaged within their own lives, within the frameworks of their own existence.
In a word, messianic. “And oh my God, do we need someone like that today,” Barnicle concluded with unanimous agreement from the panel.
Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan picked up the reins and continued the grandiose rhetoric. She recited a line from a famous letter that Jacqueline Kennedy received after President Kennedy’s death:
The hero comes when he is needed. When our belief gets pale and weak there comes a man out of that need who is bright and shining, and everyone around him reflects some of that glow and stores some up against the day that he is gone. A hero comes from need.
“Isn’t that pretty?” she prompted. Scarborough nodded solemnly in agreement: “A hero comes from need.”
The reverie came to a screeching halt when irreverent jokester Jonathan Lemire interjected, “A hero comes from need, which is why Melania Trump is here to talk about cyber bullying right now.”
Both conservative and left-wing journalists have written extensively about so-called “Trump derangement syndrome,” a phenomenon wherein Democrats and their ilk are driven by an all-consuming disdain for the President to do and say irrational things. Newsweek’s Walter E. Williams even wrote a helpful column which advised readers on how to live with the affliction. Incidentally, Williams suggested cutting back on the consumption of network news as a potential strategy.
While numerous regulars on Morning Joe have displayed the telltale signs of this ailment – especially Mika Brzezinski – Tuesday’s panel appeared to be coping in a heretofore unseen manner: they found religion. No names were floated as potential candidates for the next American messiah. Thus, it appears that Scarborough and company are holding out hope that one will arrive when they least expect it. For Brzezinski’s sake, let’s hope this individual comes soon.
