DIVIDED WE FALL: AMERICA'S SECESSION THREAT and HOW to RESTORE OUR NATION (audiobook) by David French

 




Published in September of 2020 by Macmillan Audio.

Read by Sean Patrick Hopkins and David French.
Duration; 7 hours, 18 minutes.
Unabridged.

David French is, like me, a Never Trump Republican, which means he is a man without a party right now. French starts Divided We Fall with some observations that rang very true to me. For example, he noted that while he was still a part of the two party system, he didn't really think about the automatic intensely negative reaction both sides have to the other side's proposals. The other side isn't just misinformed, they are evil. They are not just mistaken, they are trying to overthrow America and all of its institutions. They want to murder us in our sleep by taking away our rights. They HATE us.

The author
It doesn't matter which side is the "they" and which side is the "us" - it is the same argument, it is a dangerous pattern and it threatens to tear the country apart as we self-segregate into communities that tend to think alike and sometimes literally don't know someone from the other party. 

The middle part of the book consists of possible scenarios that could cause a secession crisis. They are not meant to be literal predictions. Rather, they are possible futures in which one region becomes so disenchanted that it attempts to secede and what that means for national politics, the national . This section was valuable but it was stretched out way too long.

His answer to the problem (a renewed commitment to federalism and states' rights combined with an ironclad guarantee of the rights of minorities in every state) is probably the only real solution to the problem, but it will not be easy.  

This book is well worth reading, but the section with multiple secession scenarios was simply too long and almost felt like French was padding the book to achieve a pre-specified length. Also, what does it say about our the state of American politics right now when a book published in September of 2020 already felt a little dated because of the election of in November, the refusal to accept the result of the election throughout December and the January 6 attack on the Capitol Building?

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: DIVIDED WE FALL: AMERICA'S SECESSION THREAT and HOW to RESTORE OUR NATION by David French.

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