Boycotts. Secret flights. MAGA buyer’s remorse. Hands off!

Weekend Reads for April 5, 2025

Hello, friends and readers! And happy Saturday to all.

We’ve made it through another week of Trump 2.0, and while it’s been a daunting one, it’s also brought with it a real resurgence of democratic fighting spirit — small d and big D — that we’ll talk about below.

Below, we’ve put together some of the very best essays, interviews, poetry, and memoir we’ve read this week. And, whether you’re heading off to a Hands Off! rally to make your voice heard today or sticking closer to home, we hope these readings give you some food for thought and reflection.

Among the links you’ll find in today’s edition of Weekend Reads:

• A Canadian perspective on the U.S., as cultural touchstone, and as threat

• Reflections on being blacklisted

• The lost connections of lives before smartphones

• An inside story from the deportation flights

• The stories video games tell, and how they make our world now

• What makes a boycott meaningful

• The high stakes of littering in outer space

You won’t want to miss any of it. Thank you so much to our supporting subscribers for making this newsletter possible. If you haven’t yet joined our community, why not become part of this, and help us build the future of independent media today?

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A programming note: More Live conversations next week!

On Monday, April 7, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern we’ll talk with author and organizer Astra Taylor and journalist Liz Plank. Tuesday, April 8, at 11:00 a.m. Eastern, we’ll be speaking with the author, documentarian, and political commentator Joy-Ann Reid. And on Thursday, April 10, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, the philosopher and author Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò will join us.

To join and watch, download the Substack app (click on the button below) and turn on notifications — you’ll get an alert that we’re live and you can watch from your iOS or Android mobile device. And if you haven’t already, subscribe to The Ink to access full videos of past conversations and to join the chat during our live events.

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The worst of times, the best of times

Democracy is messy; the fight for it is more so. And this week was a patent reminder of that fact. The #teslatakedown movement had its biggest day yet, taking another bite out of Elon Musk’s wallet. Cory Booker took to the Senate floor to remind us of the real power of political performance — and about what we need to demand from our representatives. Democratic voters in Wisconsin and Florida turned out against the billionaires, showing that (as Booker put it), the power of the people can be greater than the people in power. And as you read this, you are likely getting ready to head out to one of the countless Hands Off! rallies happening across the United States today.

Even as the people came together, the Trump-Musk regime continued its march of destruction, this week extending its efforts abroad. The outlandish tariffs plan brings a century of free trade to a halt, presents an opportunity for corruption on an unimaginably grand scale, and threatens to crash not just economies around the world, but here at home.

It’s awful on every level — but it’s also an opportunity. The sheer brutality of the latest moves, which directly threaten the livelihoods and lives and futures of everyone in America who isn’t lucky enough to be a billionaire (or to have a billionaire grandson like Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick), is an opening for conversations with those who bought into the MAGA dream.

Sure, not everyone can be reached, but the pain’s going to be felt across the board. The relentless cuts, the destruction of opportunity, the blow to the health and safety of every Republican and Democrat alike, the deletion of the agencies that were built to protect us — everyone’s going to feel those things. And they’re going to be upset enough to want to say something, do something.

So it’s time to reach out. To start the conversation. There’s an opportunity to build a broader coalition to fight for democracy.

Welcome to those who thought other countries needed to be more grateful for the privilege of trading with the United States but now will not be able to afford basic necessities of life. Sometimes these economic things grow clearer up close. Theory is hard. We welcome you with open arms.

Welcome to the people who wanted the tax cuts, in the hope that they might trickle down, down, down, all the way down to you, but who now face the largest tax increase in memory. Your pain is our pain — literally. This will hurt everyone. Welcome in.

Welcome to the people who thought change and what some call progress was going too far, who felt unfamiliar in their own country at times, who feared the turning of the tables, who didn’t like all the gender stuff. Welcome if you now realize that all of those fears, some based in reality but many not, were weaponized against you. Welcome back home to democracy, because the only way through those fears and those concerns is each other. Democracy is the choice to choose the future together

As Anat Shenker-Osorio reminded us this week, across the ideological spectrum, people mostly want the same things: to be free, healthy, secure in their plans for the future, to feel they can give their kids a world they’ll be able to grow up and old in themselves. That’s what we all want. The America that “never has been yet,” as Langston Hughes imagined it could be.

And we can get it, together — if we can get it together.

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And now, your Weekend Reads

The view from the North

You can call the border an imaginary line, but everything created by people is imaginary. You’d just as accurately call a Tesla an imaginary car or Donald Trump an imaginary president. But crossing imaginary lines has real-world consequences. Some smart folks say it can’t happen, or that it’s not advisable, or that if it did happen it would be a total fucking disaster for everyone involved. All I know is that I’m sick of thinking about it. [Flaming Hydra]

On the blacklist