Historian Jon Meacham Says America is in ‘Moral Crisis’ at IOP Forum

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon E. Meacham said the United States was at a “crossroads” and called on Americans to remain committed to the fight for democracy at an Institute of Politics forum Wednesday.

During the forum — which was moderated by former University President Drew G. Faust — Meacham drew heavily on themes from his 2018 book “The Soul of America,” which has been credited with inspiring Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.

“It’s thrilling that it's up to us to redeem this ‘soul,’” Meacham said. “But it’s also really terrifying. It’s like, ‘Oh, Jesus, it’s up to us. No one is going to come fix this course.’”

Meacham, who reportedly turned down an official position in Biden’s White House but informally advised the former President’s major speeches, alluded to his time in the White House.

“I was honored to help him when I could,” he said. “I think one of the things as a biographer that I intellectually understood — and I was relieved and pleased to have it ratified by experience — is that nobody’s perfect.”

“All the people I dealt with absolutely had the good of the country at heart,” he added.

But Meacham called the present political moment a “moral crisis” and said Trump was “a difference of kind” and not “degree.”

“My central worry at the moment is that there’s an autocratic trend in the country that will be deepened and accelerated,” Meacham said.

While Meacham said there was “not exactly” a historical analogy to the present moment, he referenced the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision and Frederick Douglass’s loyalty to America even after the ruling.

“If he can say that in the face of a decision that said he was not a human being, I think we can survive Fox News,” Meacham said.

He urged the audience to view the present moment through a historical lens, presenting an ultimatum between defending the “rule of law” or prioritizing “immediate gratification.”

“What do we want people to say about us and our time?” he said. “It’s about doing things that might not be immediately gratifying, but which will ultimately — and let’s just be selfish and honest about it — make us look good.”

Meacham referred to various U.S. politicians as examples of courageous leaders, such as John R. Lewis during the Civil Rights Movement.

“With their backs against the wall, they managed to bend the arc of a moral universe a little bit more toward justice,” he said. “It only bends if people insist that it swerve.”

Meacham pointed to history to serve as a guide — or warning — for the present.

“We move through dim lights and tangled circumstance, but the utility of history is to tell stories that either warn us off or call us to doing something that will ultimately stand the test of time,” he said.

—Staff writer Elise A. Spenner can be reached at elise.spenner@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @EliseSpenner.