Adam Gopnik's new book is A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism.From the transcript of his interview with Fareed Zakaria:
ZAKARIA: You describe, as one of the shining lights of liberalism, John McCain's concession speech to Obama. Explain why?--Marshal Zeringue
GOPNIK: Yes, because it's terribly important that we remember that liberalism and liberal traditions belong to no one party. One of the crucial and, if you think about it, Fareed, astonishing, miraculous things in the liberal tradition, totally unknown to the rest of human history, is the idea that we can surrender power without vengeance and without feeling embattled.
When John McCain stood up there on the night of 2008 and said, "I honor the new president; I respect the people's voice, and I wish him nothing but well, and I will stand beside him," we take that somewhat for granted. He did it with particular eloquence that night and in a particularly embattled time. But that's a miraculous thing. That doesn't happen in human history. That isn't something that we should ever take for granted. And in that sense, John McCain's concession speech was a great moment in the history of liberalism.
ZAKARIA: And you think that Trump does represent a threat to this?
GOPNIK: How can we deny that he represents a threat to it? Every day he tweets something -- and it's not a question of where you stand on abortion; it's not a question of where you stand on what the Federal Reserve should do about interest rates. It's a question of every day someone, the president, tweeting something to cast doubt on the legitimacy of an election, to cast doubt on the basic legitimacy of...[read on]