Welcome to the commentary magazine, daily podcast today is Friday, September 24, 2021.

I'm John Fajor, the editor of commentary magazine.

So, our author is out today with me as always executive editor, a brainwalt high-aid

and senior writer, Christine Rose and Hyde Christine.

Hi John. The talk of the town, the talk of the talk of the chattering classes is a immensely

long essay in the Washington Post by one of my oldest friends and one time Washington

roommates Robert Kagan that says that America's constitutional crisis is already here and this

very impressive, very detailed, very thorough argument that Bob makes in the course of this

piece lays out what might be called the worst possible case scenario arising from the

2020 refusal of Republicans and conservatives to some Republicans, some conservatives to accept

the results of the election and the aftermath of January 6.

I commend this piece to your attention not because I agree with most of it because I disagree

with a lot of it, including its tone and we'll get into some of this in a minute but because

it represents the most sophisticated iteration of the spanglerian view that we crossed

a Rubicon in 2020 with Trump's refusal to accept the results of the election then leading to

January 6 from which we cannot really return and that the Republican Party itself has now become

an implicit player in an effort to bring down the 200 and what is it now, 230 some odd year

American constitutional regime and and and replace it with something else by delegitimizing the

2024 election whether whether Trump, anyway so that is basically the so I commend it to your attention

because I think that it's worth understanding a kind of totalist global view of this general

opinion which has been summed up and gathered and fits that you know fits and starts and bits and

pieces over the last nine months but but Bob really takes it and synthesizes it and and offers it

...