Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast. This is an election year. Will Donald Trump be

re-elected? What is going on with the Democrats? And has America gone even more crazy? We'll be

discussing all of these things and more, more than once a week, because we don't

feel you have enough Americano in your life. And I have a special offer for Americano listeners.

If you want to subscribe to the Spectator's US edition, which is brilliant, by the way, I edit it,

you can go to www. spectator.us forward slash subscribe and take advantage of our special

Americano offer. If you insert the code Americano in capital letters like Donald Trump on Twitter,

you will get 5% off. Please do so. I'm joined today by Frank Buckley, who is a Scalia law professor and author of American

Succession. And we're going to be asking if coronavirus could lead to America breaking apart.

Now, Frank, you've written a piece that's coming out quite soon in the spectator about how the virus is causing what you've already written a book about,

which is that America is on a path towards the states breaking up, and that coronavirus, rather

than bringing the country together, seems to be doing the opposite. Is that a fair summary

of what you're saying in the piece? The idea is that while most people have not paid much attention to the idea of secession,

there are groups that are beginning to talk about it in places like California,

and indeed I argued, it's a lot easier to imagine and more likely to happen than anyone has really believed or thought up to this

point. And the book came out in January. We're in the midst of a coronavirus crisis right now.

So the question is, has anything changed? You might have thought, you might have hoped, that the epidemic would bring

people closer together. I mean, that's what happened after 9-11, after all. There was a tremendous

sense of unity in the country. Down at the bottom of my street at the metro stop, for example,

people gathered holding candles to express

solidarity with people at the Pentagon or in New York. There's none of that now, of course,

for a couple of reasons. And one is, we're asked to stay apart, right? I mean, we're not supposed

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