Meacham: GOP ‘Synonymous’ with China — ‘The Great Threat Is from Within’

Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” historian and author Jon Meacham warned of the “great threat” the United States faces now.

After likening the GOP to China, Meacham said people “from the center to the right” no longer have interest “in power over any kind of traditional American principle.” According to the MSNBC contributor, the “great threat is from within.”

“I kept thinking about the Republican Party and how synonymous it might be with China,” Meacham said in response to co-host Mika Brzezinski reading an op-ed about China only appearing to be strong but not actually posing a threat.

“When George W. Bush was in the transition from ‘88 to ‘89, he was reading Paul Kennedy and the decline and fall of the great powers,” he added. “Remember, the existential threat to democracy then was something called the deficit, you know, which is now, I think sort of off our radar screen. But there is a resilience and a power to American democracy and the American way of life, I believe, but it requires constant reform, constant adjustment, constant amendment, and a commitment, a common assent to being honest with ourselves about the challenges we face, the solutions we want to pursue to our problems. We can argue about the means all we want. What’s different right now is that we seem to be in disagreement about the ends. The end of most folks on the center over to the left, I believe … is part of the coherent American tradition. You can disagree with it, but it’s a recognizable tradition. As currently constituted and run, the people from the center to the right are not part of that conversation. They have opted out because of this interest in power over any kind of traditional American principle. And I think that’s going to be the great threat. The great threat is from within right now.”

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