Hi, everybody. Thank you for joining me. You know, for most of us, the inbox is so full

with stuff all the time. And people are sending us articles, people are sending us

missives, people are sending us communications. But every once in a while, something comes

across your screen and you go, whoa, I need to read this. And then you read it and you

go, whoa, again. And for me, that was about a month ago when I read an article by Stephen

Marsh. He writes about the next Civil War. This was an article based on his book and I have

asked him to come to speak to us about it. Before Stephen came on, I told him that it's a

terrifying book and you will hear why. Ultimately, it's a hopeful book if we make it hopeful,

but there's a larger conversation that goes with all of that. Stephen Marsh is a contributing

editor at Esquire magazine. He's a novelist, he's an essayist, and he's a cultural commentator.

He has written opinion pieces and essays for the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Atlantic,

Esquire, the Walrus, and many others. He's authored half a dozen books, including the

unmade bed, the messy truth about men and women in the 21st century. Maybe we'll have to

have him come back on to talk about that one and the hunger of the wolf. We're here today

to talk about his newest book called The Next Civil War Dispatches from the American Future.

Stephen, thank you so much for being here. I'm so grateful to you.

Mark Closure, good to be here. So I just mentioned and I had said to you personally as well that

the book is somewhat terrifying. So we want to start with that. According to your book, we are closer

to the beginning of what could be a violent Civil War than the average American seems to realize.

And in your book, you go through the facts. And that's really what I'd like you to lay out first.

Who are these people? What do they represent? And what is the power that they have? You know,

one of the most potent aspects of the book is you talk about the guns they have. You talk about

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