Ex-CIA Officer: America Has a 20% Chance of Splitting Apart - James Telfer

0:00You see it with the judiciary now. I think you see it with Congress. They should be the moderators, right? They should be. But if you don't feel or think a certain way, you get beaten out of your own party. They'll move you out. You'll see it with the gerrymandering, you know, trying to tweak everything to stack the deck. You'll see a weaponization, certain things that used to be understood as principle. There used to be debate. There used to be filibuster. There used to be all of these things that were standard to make sure that there was a balance of power. As those kind of get stripped away, you move clues.

0:30and closer to division. Welcome to Open Book. I am your host, Anthony Scaramucci. Joining us today is James Telfer. He's ex-CIA, but he's now an author. And the title of the book is The National Divorce, A Story of a Fractured Superpower. Before we get into this great book though, James, and thank you for coming on the show, tell us about you, your background, and what motivated you to write this book. Yeah, I think maybe in a way the story of how I wrote this is more of a story than the actual book itself. I spent nearly 25 years in the Central Intelligence Agency. You know, very forward-leaning after 9-11.

1:19I joined an office that kind of put me on the front lines. I spent an amazing career in the CIA. Worked with amazing people. Did amazing things. But all of that kind of comes to an end when you look at retirement. And, you know, talking to some of my peers and friends that had retired, some would say, you know, the biggest thing is, you know, it's like a lot of other jobs out there, whether you're in law enforcement or in the military. There could be, you know, a loss, you know, a loss of identity when one retires. It's very difficult for people, especially for the first few months going into retirement.

1:54it. So I knew I had to kind of pick up something to get my mind off of things. And what I had done is I sat down, I had, I knew I had about six months of time off. This was about October timeframe. You remember the last government shutdown? I had some time and I thought to myself, you know, this would be a perfect escape is to sit down and actually do some writing. I'm used to doing a lot of writing at work. So writing had never been anything that was on my radar because, you know, you spend all day writing. The last thing you want to do when you come home is sit down and do some more writing.

2:30I started with an idea that I would write some of the nonfiction stories from work, things that I thought I could get through my publication review board, things that weren't sensitive, things that I could tell my kids later. But I'll say that, you know, I had this other story kind of ruminating in my head for previous years. I'm a fan of politics, kind of watching the show. And I remember there being a segment on Bill Maher. I can go into Bill Maher. He's one of my dad's favorite shows. So this is something we kind of bond over. We talk about what was on Maher over the weekend. It's appointment television for him.

3:13We had watched a segment several years ago where he commented on Marjorie Taylor Greene's tweet about the national divorce, how it's impossible, never happened. And that sparked my imagination. I started thinking of, well, what if it did happen? What would it look like? What stories would be told? How would we have to get there from here? So I started thinking about this when I travel. I travel a lot. I do a lot of driving. I do a lot of flying. And so I would think about different stories, how it would impact. The regular people, who would be the politicians, who would be the influencers in this.

3:50And I started just writing down little notes here and there. And so I had this abstract for a story that I didn't really intend to write straight out of retirement. But as I started writing the nonfiction chapters, I felt as though I wasn't really doing the escape that I was looking for, you know, getting away from work for a little bit. uh so i i started to write this book and i i pretty much had everything written down it was an outline and it really flowed out of me uh the idea for me was to you know make this a fiction story there's plenty of if you look you can go to amazon and write the national divorce end you're going to find a lot of books that you know will lay out you know this is how this happens this is how you divide things up very factually based i wanted to take this heavy subject matter from an entertaining context, if that makes sense, going into an entertaining fiction story based on the people and their experiences, if this was to happen.

4:51So fast forwarding, dystopian future, 2034, 2035-ish, this has happened. This was the result of political violence kind of in our time, 2028 to 2030. What does it look like? what are the experiences uh you know build build out a world of what this looks like i i wanted it to be a book that i call an airport book you know uh i do a lot of tdy's where it's you leave on monday you come back on friday you have about a half hour at night to to knock out a couple of chapters i wanted it to be something that had quick chapters engaging story engaging content and then not really to solve any problems, right?

5:35If somebody goes into this book and says, well, you know, there's going to be some conflict resolution at the end of all of this. I do have a story arc of some characters, but nothing, you're not going to walk away with the solution, right? I even wrote down, I think on the abstract, I said, this is season one, you know, where I build the story, I introduce some characters, I build the world out and so that people can have that experience. So you grew up in Titusville, Florida, which is basically space capital of the world, right? I mean, that's really where America launched itself into space.

6:11And when I hear space and America, I think great unity. And I see you as a person that has this vantage point of seeing that and then comparing and contrasting it to today. today and so are we just pretending that we're still married james so i'm glad you picked up on that you know titusville is very near and dear to my heart uh it is a unique place where you have very uh different walks of life you have astrophysicists down to people that are second third generation floridian uh in the space program is a time that you can reflect on that we did great things. The government did great things. The people did amazing work.

6:56We were super unified. And so just kind of off of that and reflecting back on that, I also spent a lot of times with the agency overseas watching from afar. And I was overseas during COVID, during the summer of George Floyd, during, you know, January 6th. And what I'm seeing and a lot of my colleagues and people just we don't understand what you know what could have brought us to the points that we were in it seemed like about 10 years ago we went into this accelerated partisanship uh and it's starting to really think the unthinkable maybe maybe we aren't as united maybe we aren't geared in our current culture to reunite you know i think uh you know i think a lot of people have this idea that there will be a reset at some point you know i watched uh maher the other night the uh uh had brett stevens on from from the new york times yeah even he talked about well to get back to you know the way things should be uh i listened to sky galloway and kara swisher they were talking about a reckoning last week and we have to have a reckoning to get back to where things should be i i just i don't know if it's a certain generation it's our gen x plus generation that thinks you know maybe we watched a lot of 80s movies and people did the right thing at the end and people came around and had this this revelation uh i don't want to seem too pessimistic i just don't see it happening i think our culture is geared now to drag us to the extremes if you look in the you know social media and the information sphere it's almost like you know let's let's get into our echo chambers and pull us to both sides of the divide and so it's hard for me to picture a situation where you know Somehow this wave passes over us and without some type of external black swan event that we somehow figure out a way to even things out and kind of get back to the norm.

8:54So what do you think that the polarization of the 1960s didn't lead to a breakup, but today it might? What do you think is different in the last 60 years? I think, you know, and obviously I wasn't around in the 1960s, but, you know, there was polarization. There's always been some level of polarization. But it used to be that we would clamor for a bit of moderation. We would bring somebody in, some of our leaders we would vote for. We would celebrate the people that can get things done, that could unite us. And it's almost the way I see it, almost an opposite now is that we celebrate those that pull us to more extremes.

9:37Moderation is not something celebrated. If we're talking about presidential candidates, it's usually the ones that come in with the most bluster and really want to change the system. I think it's a distrust of institutions as well as we move along. Thank you for tuning into Open Book. And if you haven't already, please hit the subscribe button below so that you're the first to know when our new episodes drop each week. We've got a lot more coming. And now back to the show. listen anything is possible i'm not saying that it isn't possible and uh you know uh probably goes without saying i watch bill more as well and i've obviously been on the show as recently as a month and a half ago i was on with my old boss lloyd blank line um i i don't know i i maybe i'm too old james i don't know maybe i've gotten to be old fogey status where i look at this as a fracture but I think that America is inevitable.

10:35Maybe, am I too optimistic in thinking that? I don't think you're optimistic. I'm optimistic as well. And what I try and tell people is just because I wrote this doesn't mean I endorse it, right? I don't endorse some kind of break. I don't, you know, it's not something I want to happen, but I also think I'm a realist and I can see where things are going. I think as, you know, we accelerate, And even in the story, even in the book, I really pushed the pedal to the metal on the stereotypes of both sides. You know, both sides kind of get what they want and they're realizing it's not working out in the way that they thought it would.

11:11You need this moderating element to reemerge. I think the character that's in the book that is kind of the shaman, the person that's calling this out is a podcaster. And through his transcripts, he says, you know, our country is basically we're built on compromise of contradictory men and women. Right. You need to have that compromise. It takes, you know, both sides. You want that. You want people to be able to be in an environment where they can express their opinions, shift the political landscape wherever it needs to go and be respected. However, we are now in this space where people are getting their news from alternative sources.

11:58I watch it on social media. I watch it develop. I watch it unroll. I watch it in my community, people that I respect, family members. They are pulled to one side or the other, and they are discussing things that I thought would never be discussed. I'm a patriot. I want the United States to excel, overcome foreign interventionalism. I've devoted my career to it. But at the same time, I think there's a place for a discussion where, okay, this looks like this is going to be our future. How do we deal with this? How do we work within these new bounds? I was a big fan of The Man in the High Castle, which your book is sometimes being compared to, which is sort of this alternative history.

12:47I think what happens is when you write books like this, it does, the more people that read them, James, the reason why I would love to have you on here is that it does impact their view. It's like, you know, you go from the what ifs to the maybe so's, and then you're like, well, wait a minute, I don't know necessarily if I want that. I think that's the coolest part of your story, by the way, is the, you know, the fact that people get what they want, but it turns out that what they're getting is actually not what they want. You know, and that's the big irony. So I guess, you know, because I want to give away the plot, which I think the plot is awesome.

13:25But the split is really happening not through a conventional civil war, but there's a, I would call like an irregular small scale conflict. So just walk us through what you found more plausible in the Sumpter, like Fort Sumpter style rupture. You know, in other words, you know, you've got this micro thing as opposed to the attack on the fort, which leads to the Civil War in the 1860s. I think what you see is external forces, you know, influence, influencing the populace, pulling people to certain sides of the political spectrum, and then that erupting into political violence and then counter violence to the political violence.

14:11I even called the violence throughout the book, the troubles. And I'm, you know, I'm reflecting on what was going on in Ireland and they called it the troubles as well. That was a polite way of saying political violence, sustained political violence. I think, you know, if you follow the story and kind of the retrospective arc of the story, when they flash back, you kind of see the reasoning behind it, some of the thought processes, how we got from here to there. I didn't want to go down any rabbit holes. There's a lot of major issues that I kind of yada yada to keep it moving fast, right? But I do hit on some major points and some of the compromises that had to be made in the situations where those compromises were made.

14:53just kind of walking through the how did how do we get from point a to point b and then how do we redraw the map basically right that's it's unsettling some of the feedback I got especially when I first wrote it you know I wrote it I didn't have any intent really to to publish and I gave it to a few friends a few friends that one was kind of on the far left I gave it to another friend who was on the far right. I said, you know, I don't want this to come out as too woke or too MAGA. I want there to be kind of in that middle ground where you see what the foibles are on both sides. And the potential of getting what you want isn't necessarily what's going to lead to the best interests of the people in this country.

15:38uh and then at the end i create a situation where it shows what the best of america is a situation where we all have to respond uh unify in a way to to overcome an obstacle and i think i think a reader should walk away with you know uh you know an idea of well you know this shouldn't happen this we should be unified i mean that's the whole point it's a cautionary tale by giving you an alternative history that could end badly for people. I think there's something in here that I want to ask about the founders. So I sort of feel like the founders built a system that was designed to contain some factional conflict where they had some, even the weaker states, less popular states had some say.

16:27That was the Senate. Then you had the House of Representatives. Then you had this sort of check and balance system that sort of equalized everybody. It caused a lot of inertia, which allowed for not a lot of extreme changes. There seems to be a little bit of a design flaw. And what is that design flaw in your mind? You know, I think we see it play out. I think you see it with the judiciary now. I think you see it with Congress kind of being this, they should be the moderators, right? They should be. But they're, if you don't feel or think a certain way, you get beaten out of your own party. They, you know, They'll move you out.

17:04You'll see it with the gerrymandering and trying to tweak everything to stack the deck. I think this continues. Those are not new by any respect, but they are, I would say, hyper-exaggerated over the past decade or so. You'll see a weaponization of certain things that used to be understood as principle. There used to be debate. There used to be filibuster. There used to be all of these things that were standard to make sure that there was a balance of power. And as those kind of get stripped away, you move closer and closer to division. You had a senator or a governor or even a president, even a president Trump, let's say, were to read this book.

17:53What's the one thing you'd want them to do differently on Monday morning? Okay. You know, and again, it sounds a little out there, but just listen to the other side and have an open, honest discussion and debate. Let people, you know, be accepting of different ideas. This isn't a game of one versus the other. and I'm not putting it on any specific administration or any specific senator. But when you get a, if you get a somebody in Congress like John Fetterman, who he's kind of seen as like, wow, this is the, you know, this guy's rock and roll. Well, all he's doing is listening to the other side and trying to incorporate some of the ideas and putting his own unique independent ideas out there.

18:39That shouldn't be the, the exception to the rule. That should be, that should be pretty much every individual. I think you would strengthen the balance of power if you actually had more of that. And so that's, I mean, that's what I would, you know, if I had the chance to sit down with, you know, have a few beers with members of Congress, that's what I would tell them. And I would tell the same thing to the people in the executive branch. You think when your sons are our age, do you think they'll be reading this book as fiction or this book is going to end up becoming historically accurate? I hope it's a snapshot in time.

19:18I hope it's, you know, I hope it's they see this, they, you know, they read it. It's entertaining now, but it was an entertaining book for this period of time and that somehow we do get back to, you know, the gentlemen and gentlewomen's version of politics where I could sit down at the Thanksgiving table, talk about an issue and not have anybody walk away or get upset, you know, and really retreat to their sides. I want to be in a situation where the information flow is, you know, balanced and people hear both sides and that influences their thoughts and behavior. That's what I hope. You know, when you hear people say, well, maybe a peaceful split would actually be better than this slow motion misery.

20:08What would your response be to that? I think, you know, much like Bill Maher said on the show, I mean, you know, in the book, I tried to reflect that there's humanitarian corridors, there's things that have to come together. There's a shared Navy. I think just for the defense of our country, we need to have a way to, you know, stay somewhat working together, somewhat unified, regardless if, you know, you have California against Alabama, right? Like, we need to be able to look at who we are as a people and unify enough for protection against the other world powers that are sitting back and really enjoying this division.

20:54and from your work at the cia i mean we both know this i mean our adversaries do a lot to pump up the disinformation in the marketplace right and in the world of social media to create a lot of this tension am i wrong in saying that you're not wrong in that at all and i think i even i reflect on it for small parts in the book uh you know i think uh in the book uh you know in order to stabilize the economy, we invite some elements in from the outside. And you will see, you know, that influence is kind of a cycle, right? That's part of the cautionary tale is, you know, if we do split, it's going to harm us economically and, you know, harm who we are, but also we're opening the door for the adversaries to have more influence than they should.

21:45You know, when I write, James, I often feel like the writing is therapeutic for me and it also teaches me something. So also like I go to teach something, I actually learn the subject better. What did writing this novel teach you about America that 24 years at the agency didn't? I think, you know, again, I don't know. I don't know if it taught me anything differently. It just, what it did is it reinforced some of my, my precepts, some of my patriotism, uh, that thought that, no, we can't let it go this way. The thought that we do need to have the, the balancing arguments. It kind of, it takes all kinds, right.

22:25As we used to say down in Florida, it takes all kinds. I want the friends that are uber liberal. I want the friends that are, you know, on the conservative side. I want to hear both. And I think both need to be reflected in valued voices. The more we shut each other out and the more our families divide, the more we isolate ourselves, which is, you know, another part of this book is when I talk about AI and how we're isolating ourselves from the rest of, you know, we don't talk to our neighbors anymore. There's no sense of community. The worst things end up in the end. And this is how we get to a spot where this is even a conceivable future for us.

23:07Okay. We're down to the five words. If you've ever listened to our podcast, we pick five words out from your book. I'm going to read you the word. Are you going to give me a sentence or two? Okay. Okay. All right. So if I say superpower, you say what? A leader of the free world. And, you know, that's what we should be. and that's where our influence should be. I think you have varying levels of that. I think our excursions into Iraq and Afghanistan have kind of snapped us back as a country that we don't want to be necessarily leading on the outside. We have a lot to take care of on the inside of our country and there's a point to be made there.

23:46But I do think we are a superpower. We should be leading the ideals of democracy around the world. Okay. What if I say freedom? So freedom, I think it's, you know, it is one of those ideals in the United States that is something that you can't take for granted. You know, if you ignore the rights that we have, they get stripped away and diminished. That's the first line of our fight. We need to keep our freedoms. uh some of it is through legal means and some is uh the social pressures of social media you know risk being canceled everything else uh freedom is the lifeblood of the united states okay the word fracture fracture is broken and i think uh what i've shown in the book and the reason i use the term fracture is because what i wanted to do is it's almost like a fracture but also parallel so you see paralleling on both sides it's also a play on the the event at the end uh i think it's it's a break and uh and then the you'll see the circumstances on both sides paralleling one another on the break uh you know i used fracture i used uh i had some other terms for it but it seems like a fracture a very violent halt no it definitely definitely works Tears us apart.

25:13Definitely works. Okay. The next one I want to sort of couch a little bit. When I say national divorce to you, I want you to answer it in the context of the probability thereof. I think unless there is a change, I still, I put it to be about, you know, if I was to ballpark it, about 20%. And I only give it that 20 % because if you look at the history of Europe and some other places that maps and borders have moved, I think it's incumbent upon Americans to understand that we're not completely impervious to change and we're not impervious to political violence. I think we need to stay on top of that.

26:00It's not zero, which is a scary thought. I would have thought zero when I was a younger man, but I don't think zero now. I think we're at that tipping point, right? With the AI, the information sphere, all of these things contribute to a greater chance. No question. Okay, last word. I'll give you the last word. America. Say the word America. Oh, man. Home of the free, land of the brave, right? We are the world leaders in freedom, ideology, and democracy, and we need to fight for it tooth and nail. Yeah, well, listen, I wanted to bring you on for all of those reasons. It's a great book. I mean, you're going to write many more.

26:47I could see, obviously, a sequel to this book. I'm about 25 ,000 words into the sequel. All right, there you go. So, ladies and gentlemen, James Telfer, the author of the book is The National Divorce, a story of a fractured superpower uh really appreciate you coming on and i uh i'm a huge fan of the show by the way and i kind of feel like you know you're espn pulling the guy off the playground that's playing pickup basketball you know it's it's an interesting story i think uh i wrote it i look back on it uh there are some things i could do better and i hope to improve with whatever my next product is.

27:24It's a great story, but it's also compelling because of the ideas around it. And you're pushing us to think in a way that we wouldn't think without your help, James. So for that, we're all grateful. And I look forward to the next one. Thank you, Anthony.

27:54Thank you.