Liberal journalists are obsessed with the idea that we’re about to head into another Civil War and you can guess who they think is responsible for the coming violence. Hint: It’s not the Democrats. Historian Jon Meacham appeared on Wednesday’s Today show to promote his new book on Abraham Lincoln.
Host Savannah Guthrie compared our country’s darkest moment to 2022: “But when you look at the divisions that are present right now in our country, a lot of people do talk about the 1850s and the Civil War and the fears of violence and division. Do you see parallels to those times?”
Of course, Meacham replied in the affirmative:
Tragically, yes. History is human nature. History is not a fairytale. There was not a once upon a time and there's not going to be a happily ever after. This was on us. It was on Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass and that generation. It was on us. It’s a stress test for citizenship. By being in conversation with the past, we can see how fallen, frail, fallible sinners could actually do some saintly things, not all saintly, but just enough to get us forward. I'm confident we can do that.
Meacham loves to use history for his own partisan aims. In 2019, he touted the patriotic impeachment of Donald Trump as “why we fought the Revolution.” On September 1, 2022, another NBC News historian, Michael Beschloss, compared our current political differences to the Civil War of the 1860s and fascism of the1940s. Regarding Biden’s dark speech attacking half the country, he connected:
Joe Biden is saying, ‘Here we are, I am president, but the democracy is in peril, like 1860, like 1940.’ We are in a situation where few things go the wrong way, we could lose our system, our rule of law, our free and fair elections.
On September 21, 2022, CBS Washington Correspondent Major Garrett employed “speculative fiction” while promoting his new book. Appearing on CBS Mornings, he predicted GOP violence in 2023 and a coming civil war.
So don’t believe journalists when they talk about coming together. They’re far more interested in blaming the future civil war on conservatives.
Promoting the idea of a second Civil War was sponsored by Chevrolet. Click on the link to let them know what you think.
A partial transcript is below. Click “expand” to read more.
Today
10/19/2022
8:33SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: We’ll return you now to a fresh look at Abraham Lincoln, our nation's 16th president. Of course, freed the slaves and saved the union. Lincoln was more complex than his political acts and his place in history. Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Jon Meacham takes a closer look at his leadership and why he did what he did in his new book "And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle. Hi, Jon.
...
GUTHRIE: You know, we study history because, of course, its relevance to our current times. And Jon, I always like talking to historians, because oftentimes they make me feel better about the times we're in. They say, “Well, it wasn't as bad as back then.” But when you look at the divisions that are present right now in our country, a lot of people do talk about the 1850s and the Civil War and the fears of violence and division. Do you see parallels to those times?
JON MEACHAM: Tragically, yes. History is human nature. History is not a fairytale. There was not a once upon a time and there's not going to be a happily ever after. This was on us. It was on Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass and that generation. It was on us. It’s a stress test for citizenship. By being in conversation with the past, we can see how fallen, frail, fallible sinners could actually do some saintly things, not all saintly, but just enough to get us forward. I'm confident we can do that.
GUTHRIE: I hope we do call on our better angels.
