Time to Talk About Secession? (w/ David French)

David French — senior editor of The Dispatch, conservative evangelical, never Trumper, and really nice guy — joins us the day after the election to discuss his new book "Divided We Fall: America's Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation." We discuss the reasons why we're so painfully divided, unpack how secessions of yore unfolded, and speculate on the chilling scenarios that could lead to secessions in the not-so-distant future.

And as a bonus (because we’ve all be through a lot this week) we check in on a few past guests — Katie Herzog, Robby Soave, Tomer Persico, and Misha Thomas — to get their post-election day thoughts.

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On the agenda:

[4:47] Why David’s mad at himself today

[8:22] The SCOTUS election pattern

[11:00] David French in a nutshell

[13:00] “I went to Iraq, and then I saw what a real enemy was.”

[17:00] The power of testimony

[21:30] Never on the Trump train

[24:33] The Big Sort

[29:02] How gun rights took off

[32:55] Mind the Overton window gap

[33:54] The path to secession (Fake news, 1861 style)

[37:42] Offensive language vs. Dysentery blankets

[38:09] The different demographics of illiberal tendencies

[41:50] What fundamentalists and the radical left have in common

[45:06] A Tale of Two Secessions

[49:52] Each side’s competing narratives of grievance

[53:43] Our doom spiral of escalation

[55:10] Some familiar characters

[56:22] How to embrace pluralism

[1:00:18] An Election Day montage

Uncertain Things is hosted and produced by Vanessa M. Quirk and Adaam James Levin-Areddy. For more doomsday thoughts, subscribe to uncertain.substack.com