Welcome to the beat. I'm Ari Melbert, and thank you for joining us tonight. We have a lot planned.

There is a lot going on this week, and we have some very special guests, including a view from a

cultural perspective on climate change and these horrific fires out west by the end of the hour.

Our top story right now, though, is the warning about our future together. And with evidence to back it up,

the observation that a very small group of people who are so extraordinarily wealthy

that there is no precedent for it because there's never been this kind of wealth gap in the

history of this country or the planet and how they are now working on a political scale

to do things that may affect your life, whether you like it or not, whether you want to pay

attention or not, whether you're understandably tired of some of this in politics or not.

And we're talking about how America functions.

We talk about democracy and rule of law, and sometimes those things

are thought of almost only in relationship to the government, like the understandable attention

about the effort to overthrow the 2020 election. But this warning is much broader, and it comes

from President Biden in the farewell address. And he did it in a very specific way.

He clearly wanted to speak beyond the moment, the news cycle today, tomorrow, Monday's inauguration,

and put a marker down for history, hoping people listen sooner rather than later, but for history,

which is what Farrell Addresses can be when they work, and discuss how cronyism,

corruption, and what I mentioned, the attacks on the rule of law combined with powerful billionaire

elite cabals can affect everyone's life. And he argues America for the worst.

I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern. If we're talking one's life, and he argues America for the worst.

I want to warn the country some things that give me great concern.

If we're talking about Trump, I think it's very interesting.

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