We’ve Always Been A Divided United States

Notes from America with Kai Wright

WNYC Studios

News Commentary, Politics, History, News

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 1 December 2022

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You could say all 50 states are in something of a long-distance relationship, and it’s long past the honeymoon phase. But if we’re so divided, should we just break up already?

Whether it’s political disarray, an ever-changing spectrum of state laws or social unrest, some may feel like the United States is more divided than ever. But, history shows that our country’s actually been divided from the start. Host Kai Wright talks with author Richard Kreitner about his book, Break It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America’s Imperfect Union. They discuss the history of American secession movements and what’s still keeping us together.

Companion listening for this episode:

Can America Be Redeemed? (7/05/2021)

Eddie Glaude and Imani Perry consider the question through the work of James Baldwin and Richard Wright. Plus: How our country could enter a period of “post-traumatic growth.”

This episode was was originally published as “The Myth of A ‘United’ States” on November 22, 2021. Listen to more episodes here.

“Notes from America” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our broadcasts. To catch all the action, tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on notesfromamerica.org or on WNYC’s YouTube channel.

We want to hear from you! Connect with us on Instagram and Twitter @noteswithkai or email us at [email protected].

Transcript

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0:00.0	Do you think there's anything at all that all people in the United States have in common?
0:06.9	Self-determinism.
0:08.4	Every American I've met always wants to do things their way.
0:11.6	Do you feel any allegiance to where you live?
0:14.0	Well, I'm a native New Yorker.
0:15.3	It's just, you know, one of the most vibrant cities in the world, and my connection is
0:18.9	definitely with New York more than it is with the rest of the country.
0:22.6	And why do you think that is?
0:23.6	We just do things so differently here.
0:25.2	I feel like there was kind of always a ding rain division, but I especially after Trump
0:29.3	got elected in 2016, I feel like a lot of these ideologies that people harbor kind of
0:34.1	just surfaced, and then people started realizing how different we all are, like politically
0:38.7	and socially.
0:39.7	The division is very unhealthy, and is sometimes even tempting to want to split up our country.
0:44.7	You know, like let's division off Texas and let them do their thing, because we're just
0:48.4	not speaking a similar language at all.
0:59.3	It's Notes from America, I'm Kai Wright, and welcome to the show.
1:14.4	I want to share a conversation I had this time last year with journalist Richard Criter.
1:20.3	Richard published a book during the peak of the 2020 election madness called Break It Up,
1:25.7	the session, division, and the secret history of America's imperfect union.
1:30.8	The book is a tour through our national history with trying to get away from each other.
1:37.4	Richard argues that the storied divisiveness of today is nothing new, if anything it's
	...

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