WATCH: Freedom is an assignment

Today Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the brilliant scholar of fascism, joined me for another of these Substack Live shows we’ve been doing.

I have come to treasure these conversations. They are full of clarity about what we are seeing and living through — but also full of hope about what we as citizens can do.

I want you to dive into the whole conversation above. But we covered things like:

• the 50501 protests today and whether it’s the beginning of a real movement

• the terrifying IRS story that broke overnight, and the collision of Silicon Valley engineering culture with organized-crime culture in Trump’s DOGE

• the failures and bright spots in old and new media covering this moment

• very practical things regular people can do, at all levels, to fight back

• how this moment is best understood not as a tragedy but as an assignment

When I asked the folks who joined our show what they took away, here is some of what people said. This is why we do this.

Thank you for being part of this. As always, these Lives are open to all who join. Later we post the full videos for our supporting subscribers to rewatch and share.

Above, a short preview is open to all. If you want to watch the whole thing, subscribe. That’s how we keep the lights on, pay our writers and editors a fair wage, and build the new media we all deserve.

Stand up for media that bows to no tyrant or billionaire. Join us today.