Talking with The New Yorker about the forces of U.S. disunity
Almost a decade ago I posited, in the epilogue of American Nations, that the United States is vulnerable to dissolution. We're an unwieldy federation of rival regional cultures, many of which disagree on the fundamentals: What does freedom mean? Are we committed to the civic national promises in the Declaration of Independence? What is the correct balance between church and state, between individual liberty and the common good? "Faced with a major crisis," I wrote, it was possible "the edition's leaders will betray their oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution, the primary adhesive holding the union together. In the midst …