Divided We Fall - Chapters 11 - 15

[Chris OConnor]

Divided We Fall
Chapters 11 - 15

Please use this thread to discuss the above referenced chapters.

[geo]

Hope it's okay to skip ahead a little. In ch. 12-14, David French presents three scenarios in which various parts of the United States want to secede, including ch. 13—"Texit"—wherein the overturning of Roe vs. Wade causes a rift between liberals within the state and its red majority: As French puts it, "Angry islands of blue lived uncomfortably within immense seas of red."

I didn't care much for these chapters, but clearly French shows an almost prescient insight into some of the underlying currents dividing America. For one, as we've already discussed, it looks increasingly likely that the Supreme Court will overturn Roe vs. Wade. And, though the cause and effect of French's fictional scenarios are not quite the same, there is now a movement in Texas to secede from the union.

https://www.newsweek.com/texas-secede-u ... um-1717254

One of the reasons proclaimed by this minority in the Texas legislation is that President Joe Biden was "not legitimately elected"—giving credibility to President Donald Trump's baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

Is this a case of art imitating life? How likely is it that Texas will actually try to actually secede from the union? The article points out that this is still very much a fringe movement in Texas.

It does seem that Trump's big lie is metastacizing into something very destructive in America. Hopefully, we will return to something approaching normality once Trump is gone from the scene.

[DWill]

These chapters had elements of a "ripping good yarn," or a treatment for a screenplay. Does French have some novelist in him? The scenarios depict a very worrying future, of course.

Is he catastrophizing? I don't think so, which doesn't mean that anything as bad as what he forecasts will happen. But there isn't anything farfetched here. The last 6-7 years have seen one "inconceivable" after another fall by the wayside.