Episode 2246: Jonathan Rauch on the catastrophic ordinariness of contemporary America

So was November 5 a moral catastrophe signaling the death knell of American liberalism or just another election in the turbulent history of American democracy. According to the Brookings scholar Jonathan Rauch, the Trump-Harris election was both. On the one hand, Rauch argues, wearing his unashamedly liberal cap, November 5 was a moral catastrophe for the future of American democracy. But, on the other, slapping on his Brookings analyst’s cap, Rauch celebrates November 5 as an ordinary election. I suspect the double capped Rauch is onto a singular thing here. There is a feeling of catastrophic ordinariness about America right now. It’s that moment before a crash when everything slows down and you know something dramatic is about to happen. Enjoy the (horror) show, Rauch seems to be saying. America is about to become very unordinary.

Transcript:

“When I say a moral catastrophe, it means that people like me, we don't know what to do.” -Jonathan Rauch

AK: Hello, everybody. I'm just back from a little bit of an East Coast jaunt. I drove around rural Virginia a couple of days ago, and I saw this sign, for people who are just listening, there's a "Trump/Vance 2024" flag, and then underneath someone has put "winner." And that is clear. There's no doubt the Trump and Vance in 2024 are the clear winners in every sense. From the point of view of liberals, it's very concerning. Francis Fukuyama, who might be described as the pope of American liberalism, believes that the Trump win marks a decisive rejection of liberalism. So it's a historic change. And my guest today on the show, an old friend of of show, Jonathan Rauch, I think agrees. He's described the November election as "Tuesday's moral catastrophe." In spite of that moral catastrophe, John Rauch is still around. Just back from the south of France. It's a hard place to go, John. What do you mean by a moral catastrophe? I mean, those are strong words.

JONATHAN RAUCH: I mean in a specific sense. We don't write our own headlines, of course. And that one is a little blunt. What I meant by that is that for the last eight years, people like me, including me, have done everything in our power to persuade the American electorate that Donald Trump was an unacceptable candidate from the point of view of morality and character and basic decency and observation of the fundamental norms on which our country and constitution rely. And this election, 2024, was a complete, I think, repudiation of that view. It was an ordinary election. The good news is that it was an ordinary election. We did—

AK: And you wrote a piece for Brookings. You're a fellow of Brookings—

JONATHAN RAUCH: Yeah, that's right.

AK: —On this ordinary election. So on the one hand, it was ordinary. On the other hand, it was extraordinary. It was a moral catastrophe.

JONATHAN RAUCH: Well, it was. Yeah, that's right. The good news is that it was an ordinary election. It was a rerun of 2016. It was an anti-incumbent election. It was close. It was undisputed. We've seen all that before. The bad news, for someone like me who's been saying for eight years is this this guy is not someone who should be anywhere near the White House, is that it was an ordinary election. The voters looked at everything that he's done and everything that people like me said. And they shrugged and they said, well, you know what? You're either wrong or we're not interested. They treated him as you would another candidate. And so from that point of view, this is a, I think, a decisive rejection of what