The real 2024 election divide is the Catastrophists vs. the Casuals

As Election Day approaches, the country is ramping up toward a hyperbolic showdown between two competing sides. Throw in a second assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump on Sunday, and we’re in deadly serious territory.

The world is watching, and American citizens are invested in the outcome.

But not everyone. Some people are getting outraged about comments like “they’re eating the cats,” while others are memeing it on TikTok and making legitimately great music out of it.

Yes, 2024 is a battle between the Democrats and Republicans, but it also has exacerbated the divide between two other camps — a reframing of the division in America. On one side are “the Catastrophists” — those who feel the election between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris represents an existential moment in American history. On the other side are “the Casuals,” who see the stakes as far less consequential.

This divide can be seen on the biggest stages of culture, media and politics, or in everyday life. Catastrophists and Casuals exist on both left and right. In many ways, Catastrophists who believe Trump must win and those who believe Trump must lose have more in common with each other than with the Casuals who favor the Democrats or Republicans.

Catastrophists share a belief that we’re at a crossroads in American democracy. They have raised the stakes to epic proportions. And they only disagree with each other on the sole yet fundamental question of who is the best candidate to support during this important time.

The Casuals see the landscape quite differently. Although they surely include some anarchists and nihilists, most of them are simply ambivalent about the outcome, because they trust the public — the people — more than any particular party. They believe the party in power has less sway on the direction of the country than those in the nation’s communities, and they are unmoved by the arguments for one side or the other.

But a greater percentage of Casuals do have a clear preference. There are those on the left and the right who would certainly prefer their candidate over the alternative. They are the “lesser of two evils” voters. But they have made a calculation that this election is not necessarily critical to the future of the country — whether explicitly and consciously, or even subconsciously, through their actions.

Take Tucker Carlson. The former Fox News host, now an independent media star, recently devoted an episode of his show to an interview with a so-called revisionist historian named Darryl Cooper. A large part of this conversation was spent essentially reframing World War II — was Winston Churchill or Adolf Hitler the “chief villain” of the war? Unsurprisingly, this got a lot people talking. It was the editorial choice of a Casual, relitigating such a topic weeks before November.

Similarly, there’s the case of MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. The host scaled back her workload in 2022 to one day per week, hosting her program on Mondays only. In the heat of the election cycle, she has appeared for some special events but has stuck to this routine.

If Maddow really believed a Trump victory was an existential threat to America, wouldn’t she modify her workload — for the goal of doing everything she possibly could to save the country?

This is not to say Carlson or Maddow don’t want their candidate of choice to win — that they don’t see the country as better off with Trump or Harris in office. They do. But the stakes are much lower than if they were living their lives as Catastrophists.

Ezra Klein of the New York Times is a Catastrophist. In February, he used his perch at the paper to call on President Biden to step down as the Democratic nominee. Klein didn’t do this because he loved America and wanted a strong leader without obvious cognitive problems. He did it for the stated goal of beating Trump in November. Klein was pushing this long before it became the norm in July, after Biden’s disastrous debate. It’s worth noting he also called for an open primary process, rather than an anointing of Harris, because he believed that would leave the party in the strongest position.

And Klein held this opinion in contrast with some in elite Democratic circles. He told the Bulwark podcast in July about “top Democrats” who said they didn’t really believe Trump was an existential threat to democracy, despite the Democratic talking point that has been pushed. They would tell him, off the record of course, that “I can live with Donald Trump winning.” Those politicians may talk a big game about being Catastrophists, but their actions, and true beliefs, are those of Casuals.

Then you have Elon Musk, who immediately endorsed Trump after the July assassination attempt. Musk has put up millions to support Trump’s election, in a clear departure from his previous position as a political liberal, then independent, who stayed above the fray. In this election cycle, Musk is a Catastrophist, even going as far as to agree to serve in a second Trump administration.

Some prominent political figures have leaned into their Catastrophist point of view in 2024, with former Vice President Dick Cheney coming out and endorsing Harris, while Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) movement moved from his Democratic roots to the Trump side. Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) has gone for Trump as well.

We live in strange and interesting times when a Cheney lines up with the Democrats and a Kennedy lines up with the GOP. The Catastrophist tendencies of those involved brought us to this moment.

Taylor Swift got off the sidelines last week and endorsed Harris. Although she endorsed Biden in 2020, 2024 is a more noteworthy calculus. The last election, at the height of a pandemic, was an election cycle full of Catastrophists. This one is is not the same — there is a stronger support for Trump this time around from a variety of constituencies he didn’t have before, including many young and minority voters.

The choice Swift made this cycle separates her from celebrities like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who said he regretted getting involved in 2020 by using his massive platform to push his Biden endorsement. He is remaining neutral in 2024. The Rock is going Casual.

This is not a diagnosis of which camp is correct, or a judgment of one side or the other. While a Casual myself, I can certainly see the Catastrophist argument in 2024.

America is hopelessly divided on many issues. But there’s one area where we can find some common ground. Some people, with vastly different political persuasions, believe that the United States will be just fine no matter who wins in November.

And some people think we’re totally screwed if the other side wins. On that point, Dick Cheney and RFK Jr. agree.

Steve Krakauer, a NewsNation contributor, is the author of “Uncovered: How the Media Got Cozy with Power, Abandoned Its Principles, and Lost the People” and editor and host of the Fourth Watch newsletter and podcast.