Hi, this is Tyler in Austin, Texas. I am currently deleting hundreds of the NPR politics podcasts

that I had accidentally subscribed my fiance to when I was having trouble listening to it on my phone.

This episode was recorded at 208 PM Eastern time on Thursday, January 13th.

Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but by now my fiance's phone should have

over 2GB of space available again. Alright, here's the show.

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Usma Khaled, I cover the White House.

I'm Tamer Keat, I also cover the White House.

And I'm Ron Elving, Senior Editor-in-Core Spondy.

And today on the show, I want you all to pause and consider what might seem like a crazy

outlandish step, but there with us just think about this for a sec. In a University of Virginia

poll taken after the 2020 election, 52% of people who voted to reelect Donald Trump

said they would favor the idea of red and blue states seceding from the union to form their own

separate country. And frankly, the numbers weren't so so different for Biden supporters,

41% of them said it might be time to split the country. And I will say, you know, we talk a lot

on this show about how divided we are as a country, but numbers like these feel more existential

than the usual political polarization talk you all hear. So Ron, you know, you recently wrote

a piece online for npr.org about how and why another civil war appears to maybe be brewing.

And I will be real when I even say that phrase out loud. It feels a bit like crazy talk to me,

civil war. So Ron, explain what you mean by that.

Well, we're not talking about something along the lines of 1861, 150 some years ago,

North and South, blue and gray, the stuff of legend. We're not talking about that kind of

regional civil war that was fought at that time over slavery and states rights and

...