Hello friends, welcome. Thank you so much for joining me today. This conversation today,

I bet you're going to have some big feelings about you're going to either find it so interesting

or you're going to be like, I don't, I don't not like it. But either way, you're definitely going

to learn something because I'm chatting today with Richard Krightner who wrote a book called Break It Up,

which is all about America's secessionist movements. So I think you're going to find this both educational

and just so thought provoking. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon and here's where it gets interesting.

I am very interested to be chatting today with Richard Krightner. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you so much for having me. You wrote a book called Break It Up. And this is a topic that a lot

of people in my community find interesting in part because I find it interesting. I have spent a good

chunk of my career trying to educate Texans on why they can't leave the United States. Why the whole,

you know, like Republic of Texas to secede exclamation point bumper stickers. Why that's not a thing.

But you have a very interesting premise in your book. Why don't you share it with everyone else?

It's basically that the main theme of American history is this question of whether we are united or

whether we should be united, whether we should be one country or whether we should be many countries.

And you know, I'm tracing the idea as it has been in American history from before the founding

of the country itself, the very first settlers in what we now call the United States, you know,

the first European settlers were called themselves separatists. You know, the pilgrims were called

separatists at their time because they wanted to separate from the Church of England. And I think

that right from that very beginning to, of course, today you've got some kind of straight of

separatism that's never too far from the surface of American political life. And it's always,

it seems to be the remedy that the American discontents kind of reach for the moment that things

start going, you know, against their wishes. And I just wanted to kind of unearth that history from,

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