Making sense of it all

Weekend reads for February 15, 2025

Happy weekend, people of The Ink! Anand here. We have for you today a brilliant collection of links, inspirations, diversions, insight, thought food, and even a little bit of music. We cover:

• The actual form rising authoritarianism will take in daily life, if left unchecked

• How “Soy” masculinity quietly took over the right

• Why Google is like the East India Company

• Tried-and-true questions to kindle a crackling conversation

• The rise of white nationalist wellness, from all-natural soaps to deodorant

• How to write a brilliant opening to anything

• And a resignation letter that will inspire you

You won’t want to miss any of it. A big thank you to our supporting subscribers for making this newsletter possible. And if you haven’t yet joined our community, why not today?

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A programming note: We’re Live!

We have two Substack Live events coming up next week that you won’t want to miss: Monday, February 17, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern we’ll have our regular conversation with scholar of fascism Ruth Ben-Ghiat. Then on Tuesday, February 18, at 12:00 p.m. Eastern, we’ll be talking with Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who has emerged as one of the most fiery sources of resistance to the new Trump administration. To join us and watch, download the Substack app and turn on notifications. You’ll get an alert that we’re live and you can watch from your iOS or Android mobile device.

That wasn’t so hard, was it?

We’ve made it through another week — the fourth week of the second Trump administration — and we hope you’re holding up, dear readers. You deserve the weekend. Until Elon Musk cancels them.

While each day has felt like a month, and each month has felt like an off-market colonoscopy, it has also been a clarifying week, with much to dread and some things that offer hope. The Trump-Musk administration continued to define itself against the law, intensifying attacks on institutions, rejecting the rules-based international order at the Munich Security Conference, and conducting a stunning Thursday night massacre at the Department of Justice as federal prosecutors resigned one by one rather than endorse a corrupt quid-pro-quo deal to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

But opposition is taking shape, too. Federal prosecutors did resign rather than abandon their duty. Stays and restraining orders have begun to limit the advance of Elon Musk’s DOGE teams through American institutions. Overwhelming numbers of people are calling their representatives — and it’s getting Democratic leaders’ attention. And people are out in the streets. Crowds have been turning out to oppose Musk’s mass firings and “deletions” at government agencies. And the 50501 movement is mounting another day of protests in all 50 state capitols for President’s Day — or, as the organizers would have it, “Not My President’s Day.” Are we seeing the beginnings of a popular pro-democracy movement that can meet the moment?

This week’s readings — the essential writing from around the web we gather each week for our supporting subscribers — look at what’s at stake for American democracy, and what the world might become as it retreats. We’ve collected essays that examine whether the rule of law can survive, what to know about the continuing threat to turn back the clock on civil rights, how to deal with the abdication of the United States’ position as a world power, and what we all need to know and do about the looming disaster for humanity posed by the Trump administration’s retreat from and attack on science and research.

This curated list of links is one of the perks of being a paying subscriber to The Ink. If you haven’t already, join us today and stand up for independent, tell-it-like-it-is media that bends to no billionaire or tyrant.

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But first…in case you missed it

It’s becoming clear that we’re all stuck in an abusive relationship — with Donald Trump, the abuser-in-chief. And since it isn’t a relationship we can get out of, we’ve got to find ways of dealing with it. Nastaran Tavakoli-Far talked to therapist Daniel Shaw this week about how to understand and negotiate the world of a traumatizing narcissist, and about tips and techniques on processing and transcending the traumas of the years ahead.

How to survive the abuser-in-chief

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And now…your Weekend Reads

A resignation letter

There is a tradition in public service of resigning in a last-ditch effort to head off a serious mistake. Some will view the mistake you are committing here in the light of their generally negative views of the new Administration. I do not share those views. I can even understand how a Chief Executive whose background is in business and politics might see the contemplated dismissal-with-leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal. But any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way. If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me. [DocumentCloud]

The right’s new “Soy” masculinity

“Soy” still means “weak,” but with less emphasis on the physical more on the digital. In essence it’s a particular way of being bad at posting online: over-emotional, un-hip, sycophantic, sensitive, unoriginal, a rule-follower, reliant on stale formulations and hackneyed jokes. “Soy” is how the online right (always the vanguard of Trumpism) has perceived liberals since the Hillary Clinton campaign, against which they imagine and define themselves as “based”: Brave, authentic, unafraid, self-confident, cool.

The simplest definition of “Soy Right”--a term that’s been in circulation for at least a couple years, but has picked up steam since the Trump election--is right-wingers who have adopted the sensitive, aggrieved victimhood pose and corny rhetorical and personal style that they have spent the last 10 years attributing to liberals…