Presidential historian Jon Meacham swung by Tuesday’s CNN Tonight for a segment that included several loony analogies, including that voting Republican is akin to voting for the Confederacy or the Knights of the Golden Circle, which naturally means that voting Democrat is like Abraham Lincoln saving the Union and Winston Churchill not surrendering to the Nazis.
Co-host Alisyn Camerota kicked things off by inviting Meacham to “tell us why you think that this is the most important election since 1850.”
Meacham replied that, “Well, I think it's the most important election, easily, since that period, because we are facing a stress test for the rule of law. And democracies run not just on policies, not just about what a particular policy or tax rate is.”
He would go on to confess, “as George W. Bush might say, I mis-underestimated the power of the big lie here. But it -- it's burrowed in and democracies do not long endure if everything becomes about power at the expense of winning humbly and losing graciously.”
In his attempt to mock Bush, Meacham naturally glossed over that Bush was the subject of not one, but two election conspiracy theories from the party that he now demands the rest of us vote for to save democracy.
Co-host Laura Coates followed by starting analogy train, “You know, speaking of the big lie, and I thought it was really interesting in your book that you touch on this notion, I think maybe people would not -- would not occur to them that both Lincoln and Biden are grappling with, or at some point we're grappling with their own version of the big lie.”
If Lincoln is Biden, then the GOP is the Confederacy, “In Lincoln's case, it was the big lie that slavery was a justifiable institution that ought to be maintained. And you write in the book, there were three moments where had he succumbed to the pressure, had his vice president succumb to the pressure, had he turned over the Fort Sumter to try to placate the Confederacy and delay the Civil War, the course of history might be very different.”
Waxing poetic, Meacham ironically warned, “If we go entirely political, if it's entirely, every moment is this battle where it is cataclysmic, then the system doesn't endure.”
Getting to his own Lincoln analogies, Meacham declared “Abraham Lincoln, if he had been solely a politician, he would've made several -- could have made several different decisions that would probably have sustained slavery, certainly late into the 19th century and possibly into the 20th century.”
However, “Lincoln said no. And partly it's kind of like what Churchill did in 1940. He saw that appeasement had not worked. And that if, in fact, you gave in once more, that the south, the white south where I come from, wasn't just interested in slavery in its limited sphere.”
Reaching for the most eccentric analogy yet, Meacham explained, “There was an ambitious plan to take slavery to add Cuba to the empire, to add Mexico, Nicaragua to build this, it's called the Golden Circle. And it was going to expand and it would've fundamentally changed the course of everything. And Abraham Lincoln, flawed, fallen, and fallible, said no. And he said no, because he believed fundamentally that slavery had to die and the union had to endure.”
Does voting for Brian Kemp against Stacey Abrams make one the equivalent of Lincoln or defenders of Fort Sumter? CNN didn’t say.
This segment was sponsored by Mercedes-Benz.
Here is a transcript for the October 25 show:
CNN Tonight
10/25/2022
10:21 PM ET
ALISYN CAMEROTA: Great to see you. You're so good at giving us the big picture. So, tell us why you think that this is the most important election since 1850.
JON MEACHAM: Well, I think it's the most important election, easily, since that period, because we are facing a stress test for the rule of law. And democracies run not just on policies, not just about what a particular policy or tax rate is. It's about an overall context of our mutual respect for each other as fellow citizens and a sanctity of law and custom.
That means that people who win elections legitimately get to serve in office. When you deplete the trust in the system, which is what is unfolding today around the country. And I will confess, as George W. Bush might say, I mis-underestimated the power of the big lie here. But it -- it's burrowed in and democracies do not long endure if everything becomes about power at the expense of winning humbly and losing graciously.
LAURA COATES: You know, speaking of the big lie, and I thought it was really interesting in your book that you touch on this notion, I think maybe people would not -- would not occur to them that both Lincoln and Biden are grappling with, or at some point we're grappling with their own version of the big lie.
In Lincoln's case, it was the big lie that slavery was a justifiable institution that ought to be maintained. And you write in the book, there were three moments where had he succumbed to the pressure, had his vice president succumb to the pressure, had he turned over the Fort Sumter to try to placate the Confederacy and delay the Civil War, the course of history might be very different.
You draw these analogies in a way, I think is not always so obvious but it's fascinating to think of how and where we are today.
MEACHAM: The central question for all of us, I think, and this is about leaders and the lead and we're all on the hook for this, for the continuation of the constitutional experiment. The question is, do we put our own interests above everything else? And if you do, then this becomes a war of all against all.
And if it's all politics, as opposed to also having a moral component, and I'm not preaching here, moral means how we are with each other. It's about custom. If we go entirely political, if it's entirely, every moment is this battle where it is cataclysmic, then the system doesn't endure.
So, as you, as you kindly mentioned, Abraham Lincoln, if he had been solely a politician, he would've made several -- could have made several different decisions that would probably have sustained slavery, certainly late into the 19th century and possibly into the 20th century.
Because there was a perfectly rational compromise on the table after he wins the presidency to expand slavery to the West, let it go into Arizona and New Mexico, you know, and what was America but an exercise and compromise.
Lincoln said no. And partly it's kind of like what Churchill did in 1940. He saw that appeasement had not worked. And that if, in fact, you gave in once more, that the south, the white south where I come from, wasn't just interested in slavery in its limited sphere.
There was an ambitious plan to take slavery to add Cuba to the empire, to add Mexico, Nicaragua to build this, it's called the Golden Circle. And it was going to expand and it would've fundamentally changed the course of everything. And Abraham Lincoln, flawed, fallen, and fallible, said no. And he said no, because he believed fundamentally that slavery had to die and the union had to endure.
