author of the next civil war, ditch patches from the american future. thank you very much for joining us tonight, really appreciate it. pleasure to be with you. thank you. make your case about what you see coming from your perspective in canada. looking down in more ways than one on the current state of affairs in the united states. well, i mean, the united states is a textbook case of a country headed for civil war. it has all the attributes that the sociologist sent economic scholar cascading system. hyper partisanship, environmental degradation, high levels of inequality and low levels of solidarity as well as declining faith in institution and arising tendency to violence. and more less what i see broadly is a struggle over the meaning of america. and not expressing itself through violence.
tried to stop it. absolutely. i mean, ari, so many communities, it doesn t matter if your a democrat or a republican, you need roads and bridges, you need society to function. because of the hyper partisanship, republicans have become a party of no even when it is something that could benefit their constituents. they may vote for it and lie and say they didn t and be obstructionist and go back to the district and say i thwarted joe biden and they re making the lives of their own constituents that much harder. so we have this mindset of so many republicans, as long as democrats don t get a win and people of color and immigrants aren t getting anything, then republicans are willing to cut off their own nose to spite their faces because they want to make sure that democrats get nothing and that means people of color and immigrants and the others. professor, i want to read the other side of the ledger here
by your friends but is he a little out of touch about look, these are folks who have known each other for 30 years. there s a different code among senators, among honest disagreements. he acknowledged that some of the hyper partisanship is theater, kabuki. mcconnell did work with biden on infrastructure. has he tried to block everything else? you re right. that s normal in washington. what s not normal is the quiet part he said out loud. he said he s a man of honor. i m asking you, is he a man of honor? honor a man of honor is someone like john mccain. but, you know, i take biden at his word, as he would say. he s known him for 30 years. i get what you re saying. in this day and time when our democracy is in peril, in order to really own that term or go
and? there s a different code among senators, among honest disagreements. he acknowledged that some of the hyper partisanship is theater, kabuki. mcconnell did work with biden on infrastructure. that s a big deal bill. has he tried to block everything else? you re right. that s normal in washington. what s not normal is the quiet part he said out loud. he said he s a man of honor. he s saying he thinks mitch mcconnell is a man of honor. i m asking you, is he a man of honor? honor a man of honor is someone like john mccain. but, you know, i take biden at his word, as he would say. he s known him for 30 years. i get what you re saying. in this day and time when our democracy is in peril, in order to really own that term or go on. you know what abraham lincoln used to say? catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
get somewhat discouraged? well, that is my job every week when i teach the youth of america. i mean, i try to help them understand the framers intent to have nine unelected supreme court justices making the decisions, but men and women are human beings and are fallible. obviously we have seen hyper partisanship which was not original intent of the court at all. i think john roberts has shown how fragile our democracy is, the fact that based on his call in many ways, we can either have a blatantly racialized gerrymandered series of decisions that are made or if he is neutral and looks at the law the way we hope justices do, then we can actually move forward and have some sort of equity. one of the exam questions on my final in the past, should nine people be in charge of 330