What If America Gets a Divorce? And Other Final Election Predictions

Matter of Opinion

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Ross Douthat, News, New York Times, Journalism

4.2 • 7.2K Ratings

🗓️ 30 October 2020

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With just days left until Election Day, Michelle and Ross are joined by the Time magazine columnist and senior editor of The Dispatch, David French. Together, they revisit last year’s conservative brawl over “David Frenchism,” give the Lincoln Project more airtime than it deserves, and debate the impact Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation will have on the religious conservative vote. All three make their election predictions, including in some surprisingly competitive Senate races. Then, how likely is the re-election of Donald Trump to spur the dissolution of the United States as we know it? David makes the case for a relatively bloodless “Calixit,” and Michelle prefers a “velvet divorce” to a violent civil war. But how likely is either? And finally, David recommends what “may be the last unifying piece of pop culture left in the United States of America,” available now on Apple TV. For background reading on this episode, visit nytimes.com/theargument.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Michelle Goldberg.
0:01.8	I'm David French.
0:02.9	I'm Ross Douthet.
0:04.3	And this is the argument.
0:06.7	Today, with just days left before the election happens, what are the fights that still
0:14.6	matter and who's going to win?
0:17.8	And then, will the Trump era make the union fall apart?
0:27.0	For our last pre-election episode, we're joined by David French, a time magazine columnist,
0:32.3	a senior editor at the dispatch, and the author of the new book, divided We Fall, America's
0:38.0	Session Threat, and how to restore our nation.
0:41.0	David, welcome to the argument.
0:43.1	Well, thanks so much for having me.
0:44.9	It's a privilege.
0:45.9	I'm a long time listener.
0:47.4	Long time listener, first time caller.
0:49.3	Indeed.
0:50.3	So, we're going to talk about your book and Session and other potential threats to the union
0:55.3	in the second segment, but let's start with where we find ourselves with just days left
1:00.2	before the 2020 presidential election.
1:03.2	Our long time listeners may remember an episode from June 2019, where we discussed a debate
1:09.5	roiling the conservative intelligentsia back then about so-called David Frenchism, what
1:15.6	it meant for conservative relationship to liberal democracy and especially to the presidency
	...

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