Hey everyone, John Hyelman here and welcome to Hell in High Water, my podcast for the

recount about politics and culture on the edge of Armageddon with big ups to my power

Rizza, the presiding genius behind the Santa Bhutan clan, and the producer of our dope

theme music. Hey so, everybody look, it's 2022. Happy new year people! After the abject horror

shows that were the past two years, and especially the last week of 2021, in which we lost

Joe Didian, Harry Reid, John Madden, and Betty White for Crystic, I am tempted to say that it's

hard to imagine that the coming year could be any worse. I mean, some better days must lie ahead,

right? Some reprieve, bestowed by the good Lord up in heaven, or the Demi Gods,

Berside over the realm of man, some respite from the unimaginably horrific, the unprecedentedly

awful, the no good, very bad, massively gargantuanly, horse-shitty run that we've all been enduring

for what seems like forever, some modest, incremental, teeny tiny improvement has to be inevitable,

right? Well, unfortunately, if you believe that, I have six words for you. Don't fucking bet on it,

Bob. My feelings about this are not only rooted in the fact that the entire premise of this

podcast is that all of this apocalyptic end time stuff we're going through is essentially the new

normal. It's also connected to the fact that as far as I can see, there is no reason whatsoever

to doubt the fundamental veracity of one of my all-time favorite political axioms. Good gets better,

and baguettes worse. And this week's episode of Hell in High Water speaks directly to this point

when it comes to the bedruggled state and imperiled fate of American democracy. Something that a

lot of us, for most of our lives, believed was without doubt imperfect and in need of various

reforms and fixes and improvements, but was fundamentally sound, robust, and going to remain

intact for a good long while. But our guests today, both of whom have given this subject a lot of

careful thought, begged to differ. And unfortunately, they are far from alone in being alarmed about

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