The.Ink

Introducing The.Ink, a fresh newsletter by Anand Giridharadas that delves into the realms of politics, culture, money, and power while sharing honest insights. In these times of uncertainty and significant political change, The.Ink creates an inclusive platform that prioritizes community and is free from traditional gatekeepers. You can expect thought-provoking essays on current events, engaging interviews with intriguing individuals, and suggestions for books and cultural experiences. Plus, we’ll also feature unique items such as recipes for fish-sauce vinaigrette and haircare advice (it involves wax).

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What Zohran can teach Democrats

3 days ago | the.ink | Anand Giridharadas

At what became the victory party for Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old phenom who palpitated the political establishment to become the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York, the guests were trying to process a shared feeling that was hard to put into words. It was the opposite of what everyone had been feeling for seven and a half long months. What is this feeling? people kept saying to each other, only half-joking, half also wondering.
WATCH: Terry Moran unmuzzled

1 week ago | the.ink | Anand Giridharadas |Terry Moran

We talked today with Terry Moran, the veteran journalist let go by ABC News under White House pressure after a tweet calling out Donald Trump and Stephen Miller as “world-class haters.” Which, according to The Ink’s fact-checking department, they are. We spoke about the media’s handling of the second Trump term, the importance of reclaiming patriotism from far-right nationalists, what happened to the American social order, and why Moran still has hope in the basic normalcy of most people.
WATCH: Brad Lander on his “gestapo”-style ICE detention

1 week ago | the.ink | Anand Giridharadas |Brad Lander

When New York City Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander was arrested at immigration court on Monday while escorting an immigrant, then threatened with assault charges despite video evidence to the contrary, he became the latest victim of the Trump regime’s effort to “liberate” Americans from their local elected officials.
WATCH: Is the West built on a lie?

1 week ago | the.ink | Anand Giridharadas |Omar El Akkad |Leigh Haber

Today we were joined by the journalist, novelist, and memoirist Omar El Akkad, the author of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, which we’ve been reading this month with The Ink Book Club. The book is a reflection on the devastation of Gaza, a memoir of the immigrant experience in North America, and a kind of breakup letter to the West from someone disillusioned not just with its worst hypocrisies and blind spots, but also with his own sense of complicity in an illusion.
WATCH: Don’t stop believin’

1 week ago | the.ink | Anand Giridharadas

Today, we were joined by Adam Met, musician, activist, Ph.D. in human rights law, and now author. Met has a new book — Amplify: How to Use the Power of Connection to Engage, Take Action, and Build a Better World — which explores the connections between music and politics, and how storytelling is at the heart of the emotional appeal — “collective effervescence,” as it’s known in sociology — that builds both audiences and social movements.
WATCH: Skip the dinner invitation, earn back the working class

1 week ago | the.ink | Anand Giridharadas

Today, Rep. Greg Casar of Texas, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, joined us to talk about the threat of a new war in the Middle East and the bipartisan attempt to stop it, the difficulty of legislating and living with the chaos of Donald Trump’s White House, and the ongoing battle for the direction and soul of the Democratic Party. Trump, his budget, and his immigration raids may be deeply unpopular, but Democrats are more unpopular than ever. Rep.
WATCH: A limp parade, and a rising resistance

1 week ago | the.ink | Anand Giridharadas |Ruth Ben-Ghiat

Today, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, scholar of authoritarian regimes, joined 3,000 Ink and Lucid readers to discuss the weekend’s dueling events: the huge turnout all over the country for No Kings rallies, and the much smaller crowds that turned out for Donald Trump’s limp military spectacle in Washington, D.C. Trump may have big authoritarian pretensions, but why was it so hard for him to get the military parade he dreamed of? We discuss. We are opening this video to all.
ESSAY: A bad parade is a good sign

1 week ago | the.ink | Anand Giridharadas

Join us today, Monday, June 16, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, when we talk again with scholar of authoritarianism Ruth Ben-Ghiat. You can watch our Live events on your desktop at The Ink or on your phone or tablet with the Substack app. The country that invented jazz was never going to be good at putting on a military parade. It was never going to be us. In the wake of Donald Trump’s flaccid, chaotic, lightly attended, and generally awkward military parade, a meme began doing the rounds.
WATCH: Can we talk about Biden?

2 weeks ago | the.ink | Anand Giridharadas |Jake Tapper |Alex Thompson

This afternoon, we had a very spirited conversation with journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, the authors of Original Sin — a conversation that we realize a lot of readers of The Ink didn’t want us to have (we know, because you told us so before and during the event). The book, Tapper and Thompson made very clear, may be about Joe Biden’s decline and the effort White House insiders made to hide it, at a terrible cost to the country, but it’s about something bigger.
WATCH: Bursting the police state’s trial balloons

2 weeks ago | the.ink | Anand Giridharadas |Ruth Ben-Ghiat |Jason Stanley

To coin a proverb, one fascism scholar is an expert; two is an unlawful gathering. So today we talked with scholars of fascism Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Jason Stanley (and 4,100 readers) about whether Donald Trump’s disproportionate response to anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles puts the United States further down the path towards a police state — or opens up possibilities for an effective and sustained mass response.