Hosted by Faisal Al Yafai
Featuring Anand Giridharadas
Produced by Finbar Anderson
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The writer and political pundit Anand Giridharadas was deeply troubled by the recent assassination of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, despite sharing almost none of his views.
“He spent a lot of his life trying to advocate for a vision that I don’t consider the best and most authentic version of what American democracy should be,” he tells New Lines’ Faisal Al Yafai on The Lede.
“However, as a method of approach he really believed in argument and debate and persuasion and changing minds as the way you go about the work of getting the society you want,” Giridharadas continues. “And while that may seem like a very normal idea, unfortunately in 2025, it is not normal.”
“One of the last threads of commonality is that feeling of being cosmically uncared for.”
What underlies Kirk’s assassination, Giridharadas says, is that “the number of people who feel that the old procedures, going by the book, calling your member of Congress — the level of faith in that actually making your life better is at a very dangerous low point.”
Giridharadas notes that those on either side of the American political divide increasingly have fewer things in common. “One of the last threads of commonality is that feeling of being cosmically uncared for,” he suggests. “You will find that among Trump voters, and you will find it among Black Lives Matter activists.”
For Giridharadas, the answer to building a better future comes in doubling down on persuading others of the value of progressive politics. “It’s going to be really, really important in the coming days, weeks, months, years to redouble our commitment to organizing and to persuasion to get more and more people firmly entrenched in the culture and the practice and the belief in democracy.”