Eddie Glaude Jr. opens his latest book with a sentence designed to stop readers cold: “I do not love America, never have, especially now.”

But Glaude says the line isn’t about rejecting people—it’s about rejecting the idolatry of the state and confronting the gap between America’s ideals and its history. He tells Frank Figliuzzi how growing up Black in Mississippi shaped the way he sees patriotism, race and the country itself.

So why does Glaude say America has a “divided soul”? And why does that contradiction keep resurfacing generation after generation?

Glaude and Figliuzzi trace the line from Reconstruction and the Klan to Barack Obama, the Tea Party and MAGA—and argue that the country keeps repeating the same crisis because it refuses to tell itself the truth.

00:00 The Controversial First Sentence  
00:25 “I Do Not Love America”  
00:47 When Patriotism Becomes Idolatry  
01:14 “People Can Wrap Their Hatreds in the Flag”  
01:37 Growing Up Black in Mississippi  
02:46 “The Black Experience Is the American Experience”  
03:24 America’s “Divided Soul”  
04:45 Why the Country Keeps Repeating the Same Crisis  
05:55 Reconstruction and the Collapse of Democracy  
07:24 The Klan and America’s Anniversaries  
08:46 Obama, the Tea Party and Racial Panic  
09:21 The Grievance That Became MAGA

Eddie Glaude: America Has a “Divided Soul” | The Frank Figliuzzi Show