David French Talks “Divided We Fall”

“Well, the first paragraph basically says it all. It begins with ‘The continued unity of the United States of America cannot be guaranteed.'”

On February 15th, Thomas Koenig was joined by David French to discuss his latest book, Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation, which was released in September. Mr. French, who previously served as a staff writer at National Review, now is a senior editor at The Dispatch. In this conversation, Mr. French and Mr. Koenig discuss Divided We Fall’s treatment of the stark divisions that mark American politics and society, the extent to which the events of January 6th vindicated Mr. French’s March, 2020 assessment of the possible trajectory of American politics, and possible solutions to the dilemma, particularly a potential rediscovery of federalism.

A video of the conversation is available on YouTube.

Hi, I’m Tom Koenig. And I’m joined today by the senior editor of The Dispatch and Time magazine columnist David French. David, thanks so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, of course. So we’re here today to discuss your new book Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation. So I’m going to start with the most important question: What’s your book about?

Well, the first paragraph basically says it all. It begins with “The continued unity of the United States of America cannot be guaranteed.” And it says the reason for that is because there is no single truly important cultural, political, social, or religious force that’s pulling us together more than it’s pushing us apart. All of the big streams of culture, of religion, and politics are just pushing Americans further and further apart. And the rest of the book sort of amplifies that thesis. I mean, everybody knows we’re divided, right? So I don’t have to prove that we’re divided. But it talks about why it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better. Why, in fact, it’s probably going to get worse: how we could break apart, I imagined two different scenarios. And the third part is how we can try to heal. And it’s not sort of a Kumbaya vision that says, “Well, we’ll just kind of—at some point—start liking each other,” but tries to get, you know, pretty brass tacks about how bad it is—and, what we can do about it without being too idealistic or utopian.