Marshall here. Welcome back to the realignment. My guest on today's show is the Atlantic's George

Packer. George has a new book out today, a work of fiction called The Emergency. The emergency is a

political fable about, quote, an empire collapsing in boredom and lack of faith in itself. If that

sounds like America in the 21st century, you are on exactly the right track.

What I really appreciate it about the book is that the story isn't about Donald Trump.

As George puts it in this interview, it's an intergenerational story of how liberals and their children

navigate the cultural upheaval of a world that's collapsing in on itself.

There's no Trump-Demagogue character though, and you'll be able to read and think about

the emergency's themes without the latest news scandal popping into your head.

A few weeks ago, George also wrote a piece in The Atlantic on our post-literate age and why

he shifted from writing books of journalism to fiction in the case of the emergency.

Since this show is really focused on books and reading, we start there.

On that theme, George and I also discussed two of his previous books, The Unwinding and Blood of the Liberals.

Those books have both really served to shape my POV on the show's big topics.

The Unwinding is a journalistic exploration of the 2010s of Obama's America.

Though the unwinding came out after Obama's re-election, the story really cuts through the decades

pre-Trump, elite optimism, and made clear

that something Trump-like was coming down the pipeline. I've made a lot of hay about the political

center, lacking a straightforward story of how we got here as a country, in stark contrast to

the populist left and right. If you are someone who could tell that story, you need to start with the Unwindings

Foundation. The second book we mention is his 2000s family biography, Blood of the Liberals,

which tells the story of 20th century American liberalism's downfall to the present through his

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