Colin Woodard: The Federation Is the Fault Line
The Gist
Mike Pesca
4.4 • 3.6K Ratings
🗓️ 5 November 2025
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Woodard maps America's clashing "nations," from American Nations to Nations Apart, arguing that our deepest divides are regional and newly combustible. He makes the case that post–Cold War policy, social media, and a fraying social contract turned long-standing cultural seams into political fracture zones. We press whether his framework explains why now more than past crises. Plus: a quick read of the 11/5 results — Democratic gains in New Jersey and Virginia, Maine's voter-ID rejection, a Georgia PSC flip, and late counts in Minneapolis and Seattle.
Produced by Corey Wara
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's Wednesday, November 5th, 2025 from Peachfish Productions. |
| 0:07.2 | It's the gist. |
| 0:08.4 | I'm Mike Peska, and the results were very good for the Democrats. |
| 0:11.8 | I think all the Democrats, all the plausible Democrats and some surprising Democrats, New |
| 0:18.4 | Jersey, to take the results of the 2024 presidential election. Kamala Harris |
| 0:23.2 | won by six. Yesterday, Mikey Sherrill, won a race that was supposed to be, or touted as close, |
| 0:29.4 | one by 13. Virginia, margin of victory, also six, a little under six in the 2024 presidential |
| 0:35.8 | election. Harris B. Trump, Abigail Spanberger, won by 15 points. |
| 0:41.0 | California is 50. That one, that proposal, they'll be redistricting even though the Republicans |
| 0:46.1 | have now filed suit to stop that. There's a main voter ID law. Republicans like bringing |
| 0:52.2 | voter IDs to the poll as much as I don't like voter ID as a |
| 0:56.5 | proxy for oppression, the voters say, no, we'll vote without the ID. That's a Democrat or maybe a |
| 1:02.6 | liberal win. Here was a surprising win also for the Democrats, the Georgia Public Service |
| 1:08.9 | Commission, where two Republicans, Tim Eccles and Fritz Johnson, were voted out. |
| 1:14.6 | Not, no longer a Boone era for politicians named Fritz. |
| 1:19.3 | Fritz Mondale, Fritz Hollings, they once strode the earth. |
| 1:22.6 | Not so much Fritz Johnson, who said, |
| 1:25.4 | And now the very same Democrats who think it's right for taxpayers |
| 1:29.3 | to fund gender affirming surgeries for prisoners, |
| 1:32.3 | want control of your power bill. |
| 1:34.3 | You know what? |
| 1:35.3 | That didn't play, because these two particular Democrats |
... |
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