I truly appreciate your efforts, your work on all subjects. Thank you.
Sergi and the Westminster Spy Ring is outstanding for the global perspective we all must have. Your Substack is excellent and all encompassing, I can’t recommend it enough!
Ah thanks so much, Karen. The whole idea of the Sergei podcast is to 'smuggle' this very complicated story into the mainstream through a gripping and human story and the real life Sergei is such a character. Writing episode 9 is on today's very long to-do list...thanks so much for listening.
I have a seattle coupe that formed: I Hope that one day, someone will tell our story—two small businesses in Seattle, crushed by three billionaires: Greystar, Intercontinental Hotel, and the Car Pros Family. All connected, yet no one is talking about it. The power, the money, the destruction—when will small businesses get justice?
It’s a coup and constitutional crisis. Please cover all the civil servants who are fighting to save our sacred democracy. My colleagues and I are gathering evidence of the muskrat and his minions’ crimes. Here is a poem I wrote to inspire all of us as we battle fascism: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/public-servant-poem-guardians-of-the-flame
After belatedly getting up to speed on the Guardian’s new partnership deal a few weeks ago.
I cancelled my subscription to the Guardian. And wrote to the editor explaining why I was cancelling my subscription. Oddly for the first time ever in writing to the Guardian I didn’t receive an auto response acknowledging my email. Needles to say neither have I heard from the Editor.
Essentially the United Kingdom no longer has a left leaning national Newspaper representing the majority of its readers political views. The content has already become less insightful and more pithy, and some outrageous Right Wing divisive rhetoric has been allowed in unchecked.
The U.K. Government and people need to realise the Right Wing takeover is also happening here and NOT Just in America.
Hi Floyde, thanks for the question. Ultimately, it's a personal decision and I completely understand your conflict. I've been a passionate supporter of why we need well-funded, robust news organisations now more than ever. I was actually invited to join Substack on a paid pro deal (for $100k!!!) back in 2021 and turned it down because I thought disaggregating the potentially profitable bits of journalism from expensive boots-on-the-ground reporting was a dangerous direction of travel. But, if news organisations are not able to adhere to their own stated values and act with reckless disregard to their own journalists and readers, I don't think they're fit for purpose. The Guardian's staff are demanding an overhaul in the governance structure including more journalists on its board. It feels like it may be too late. Internally, the "transfer" of the Observer has felt like a journalistic betrayal and an act of cultural vandalism, the appointment of the Google executive and now the "partnership" between OpenAI and the Guardian all show a leadership team and board that is out of step with its core audience and an understanding of the times we are in. As I say, it's a personal choice and I don't want to tell anyone what to do or not do, but thank you so much for engaging with my journalism and for the question, Carole
It is with a heavy heart that I withdraw my Guardian subscription but with joy that I contribute that money to you, Carole, for your amazingly courageous, insightful journalism. Thanks for all you do!
There are problems at the Guardian, but for all that it is still a lot better than any of the alternatives in the media game. If we leave the Guardian where else can we go?
Absolutely agree, Richard, hence my ‘heavy heart’. Funds are finite though, and I have chosen to transfer them to Carole. Ideally, I would be able to support The G, The Atlantic, The Conversation, The Saturday Paper, a few other publications and about 30 Substacks…
I'm both appalled and shocked by the way the big USA tech firms have fallen into line behind Trump/Musk/Project2025.
I'm trying to work out ways of disengaging from these American platforms, many of which I'd already moved off (or never went on) à few years ago. Like Meta & TikTok (OK, Chinese in this case).
What's much harder though is working out how to disengage from Google (I'm using Firefox and DuckDuckGo for search). I've largely moved away from Gmail, preferring ProtonMail who are based in Europe and now likely growing exponentially.
For messaging, most of the time I use Viber (also big in Ukraine) whose HQ is based in Cyprus and which is owned by the Japanese firm Rakuten. An alternative (but American) is Signal.
I would love to hear your views on data privacy and how we can improve our comms & Internet use in ways which boost the European developers, keeps us under the umbrella of EU data protection, and ideally hurts those American tech firms now capitulation to an authoritarian president surrounded by his faithful disciples.
Can/should Europe start the process of disengaging from USA platforms and what's the best strategy we can come up with? How do we best defend against harmful state & corporate actors to ensure our democracies survive?
Rory Stewart made an interesting comment on his podcast recently about the ‘tech bros’ all appearing at Trump’s inauguration. He said that they don’t necessarily like what he’s doing, but they are literally scared of going to jail. Hence a few big donations & smile for a few hours.
What does that signify?
It’s simple- corruption staring you in the face. 😩
Thanks for letting us know what's going on at the Guardian. I just wrote to them.
"Dear Guardian,
I am a subscriber and have been for a few years now. But I just read on Carole Cadwalladr's substack that you’re firing over 100 journalists and replacing them with Open AI. What the eff, Guardian?
How can you publish articles on the devastating effect of AI on the environment, as well as the plagiarism and bias in what OpenAI produces, and then embrace it? How can you be talking one message and doing something so contrary to your own values?
I am going to debate whether or not to even continue subscribing in the light of this, and I’m posting this on my Facebook page and making it shareable. People need to know that the Guardian is apparently selling out to the system it purports to critique and resist.
If you send me some mealy-mouthed reply or one that doesn’t stand up to an AI check, I’m unsubscribing and making that public too. Come on, Guardian, you’ve been ‘our’ paper since the 80s when I started buying the paper version. Don’t sell us all out now.
There appears to be the fragile grassroots of resistance to Trumpism from within, in particular from the legal (including conservative) profession, in a few recent days (since only a week or so). The big question is what the 9-member tainted Supreme Court, SCOTUS, will decide when it either confirms that Trump&Co are OK to continue on his autocratic democracy-destructing path or comes to its constitutional senses and turns this awful tide.
Thanks for your reporting. I have forwarded your previous message, It's a Coup, to probably 10 people in hopes of spreading awareness, and perhaps starting a discussion.
I got a "yup" from my sister which speaks volumes!
I will continue to sound the alarm. Your writings are a bucket of cold water in the face!
As a retired journalist I’m in awe of your tireless reporting. You’re right, everyone is going along as if it’s business as usual, even the MAGA voters who think they just voted for cheaper eggs. Just like everyone who ever voted for a dictator because they thought they would never do ‘those’ things. Well guess what - the status quo has changed and personally I’m scared to death about it.
Thank you for continuing to cover these important issues, I can only imagine the threats you must be facing. I cancelled my voluntary subscription to the Guardian because of what they have been doing and am subscribing to Substacks, The Power included as of today, instead. I also cancelled my NYT subscription this month for their woeful coverage of the coup and will subscribe to further journalists on an individual basis. It seems like we have to curate our own newspapers these days.
I found reading Professor Timothy Snyders books and following him on social media platforms was helpful in adding even more depth to understanding Putin’s motivation and the strategies he employed to put us where we are now.
The Road to Unfreedom , On Tyranny. He also has a substack.
Oh thanks so much for that, Carol. Really appreciate it. I'm trying to put stuff out on different channels, but there are so many of them and I've been a Facebook refusenik from before it was fashionable...
agreeing with every word and what panics me most is that so few seem to be panicking (that egg muffin business). If (theoretically) US and Russia were aligned, that would mean 88% of entire world's nuclear arsenal aligned, for example. Two criminals in position to annihilate us all at any moment. Using it as a threat to any opposition. If there's any solace then at least attack on "Whitehall blob" was not synchronised with DOGE attack.
I have a potentially naive question. As someone who works in journalism, do you think there is a way to hold larger journalistic organizations responsible for accurate reporting? I currently have a Times subscription and am unsure what makes a bigger impact - emailing them to say I subscribe but am appalled at their reporting? Cancelling and telling them the same? Or is it naivety to think that this would make any difference.
Thank you for that question, Ashley. I would say that news organisations would be insane not to take note of readers' comments (though it was exactly what the Guardian did when it "sold" the Observer to protests from hundreds of people). My suggestion would be to email the editor, chair of the board etc, too.
Keep up the brilliant, brutally honest, marvelously articulate and utterly authentic journalism! Having recently discovered your work I now count on you for your crystal clear insight into the ongoing catastrophe and its underlying engines. The coup.
One thought I would like to contribute to the bias you alert us to: I have observed for years that, working hand-in-hand with American’s deep seated ‘status quo / normalcy bias’ is, a severe lack of ‘negative imagination’ – the rare ability to conceive of and internalize the harsh reality that worst-case outcomes can happen, do happen, that they can happen to me, and can in fact happen tomorrow.
In general humans have proven to be abysmal at taking decisive action to prevent future threats (climate change!), and Americans are more abysmal than most. Political risk adviser Raul Gallegos observes that negative imagination was the key deficiency that contributed to America’s serial failures, over decades, to craft an effective policy to deal with the collapse of Venezuela He points out that our great wealth and individual liberty are a strength that has become a weakness. It makes us prone to hubris and
overconfidence such that we are unprepared, indeed
blindsided by events such as the 9/11 terrorist strike
and the rise of Donald Trump. This same dynamic left us woefully unprepared for the COVID-19 pandemic and the chaos and abandoned civilians that attended the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan.
Working in mutually reinforcing combination with status-quo bias, these two ‘engines’ are resulting in, as far as I can observe, almost all American adults blithely continuing with their normal activities. The house is on fire, the bank has been hacked, a wrecking crew is carrying out a coup real-time, and they are worrying about their next Amazon purchase.
Having worked for years to end U.S. wars on central and south american countries since Reagan, I find "status quo bias....because things will return to normal" quite familiar.
After decades of practicing those interventions with impunity, the current state of affairs feels in a way as though it is our turn. Our turn to deal with the unimaginable state overthrow and cruelty the U.S. dished out with little domestic interest.
Naomi Klein observed long ago that "Impunity breeds a kind of delusional decadence."
True, wherever impunity is found.
Thanks for your work. Only suggestion is to include more historic normalization, less shock.
Perfect quotation from Klein. Thanks for your work in trying to elucidate how, over the years, wherever corrupt political players are allowed to hijack power it eventually harms all of us. Also agree about framing this era with less shock and more historical context.
Thank you, Carole, as ever, for another brilliant update on the machinations of corrupt individuals and the huge danger they pose for all of us. George Monbiot in a recent Double Down news video referred to a kind of Neoliberal takeover 'blueprint' (to paraphrase badly) that is enabled by tech and which can be quickly rolled out by governments seeking to impose authoritarian rule, hence the rapid spread of right-wing populism. The instant global reach that tech provides creates unprecedented power, which is why this is all so very frightening.
I truly appreciate your efforts, your work on all subjects. Thank you.
Sergi and the Westminster Spy Ring is outstanding for the global perspective we all must have. Your Substack is excellent and all encompassing, I can’t recommend it enough!
Ah thanks so much, Karen. The whole idea of the Sergei podcast is to 'smuggle' this very complicated story into the mainstream through a gripping and human story and the real life Sergei is such a character. Writing episode 9 is on today's very long to-do list...thanks so much for listening.
Infotainment is an excellent way to get people to take in the information.
Indeed
I have a seattle coupe that formed: I Hope that one day, someone will tell our story—two small businesses in Seattle, crushed by three billionaires: Greystar, Intercontinental Hotel, and the Car Pros Family. All connected, yet no one is talking about it. The power, the money, the destruction—when will small businesses get justice?
It’s a coup and constitutional crisis. Please cover all the civil servants who are fighting to save our sacred democracy. My colleagues and I are gathering evidence of the muskrat and his minions’ crimes. Here is a poem I wrote to inspire all of us as we battle fascism: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/public-servant-poem-guardians-of-the-flame
Lol, no it's not. You just don't want Democrat corruption investigated.
Quid pro quo
After belatedly getting up to speed on the Guardian’s new partnership deal a few weeks ago.
I cancelled my subscription to the Guardian. And wrote to the editor explaining why I was cancelling my subscription. Oddly for the first time ever in writing to the Guardian I didn’t receive an auto response acknowledging my email. Needles to say neither have I heard from the Editor.
Essentially the United Kingdom no longer has a left leaning national Newspaper representing the majority of its readers political views. The content has already become less insightful and more pithy, and some outrageous Right Wing divisive rhetoric has been allowed in unchecked.
The U.K. Government and people need to realise the Right Wing takeover is also happening here and NOT Just in America.
Except in Scotland where The National is left leaning and The Sunday Herald has a reasonable balance.
I am a long term financial supporter of the Guardian and I find their direction abhorrent.
Carole - I want to support them and believe that they have a future in truth telling journalism.
Do you recommend withdrawing the financial support as a protest? I'm torn and would appreciate your view as someone in the thick of it.
Hi Floyde, thanks for the question. Ultimately, it's a personal decision and I completely understand your conflict. I've been a passionate supporter of why we need well-funded, robust news organisations now more than ever. I was actually invited to join Substack on a paid pro deal (for $100k!!!) back in 2021 and turned it down because I thought disaggregating the potentially profitable bits of journalism from expensive boots-on-the-ground reporting was a dangerous direction of travel. But, if news organisations are not able to adhere to their own stated values and act with reckless disregard to their own journalists and readers, I don't think they're fit for purpose. The Guardian's staff are demanding an overhaul in the governance structure including more journalists on its board. It feels like it may be too late. Internally, the "transfer" of the Observer has felt like a journalistic betrayal and an act of cultural vandalism, the appointment of the Google executive and now the "partnership" between OpenAI and the Guardian all show a leadership team and board that is out of step with its core audience and an understanding of the times we are in. As I say, it's a personal choice and I don't want to tell anyone what to do or not do, but thank you so much for engaging with my journalism and for the question, Carole
Thank you for your considered reply. At least supporting you is an easy option :)
It is with a heavy heart that I withdraw my Guardian subscription but with joy that I contribute that money to you, Carole, for your amazingly courageous, insightful journalism. Thanks for all you do!
Dave in Australia
There are problems at the Guardian, but for all that it is still a lot better than any of the alternatives in the media game. If we leave the Guardian where else can we go?
Absolutely agree, Richard, hence my ‘heavy heart’. Funds are finite though, and I have chosen to transfer them to Carole. Ideally, I would be able to support The G, The Atlantic, The Conversation, The Saturday Paper, a few other publications and about 30 Substacks…
I'm both appalled and shocked by the way the big USA tech firms have fallen into line behind Trump/Musk/Project2025.
I'm trying to work out ways of disengaging from these American platforms, many of which I'd already moved off (or never went on) à few years ago. Like Meta & TikTok (OK, Chinese in this case).
What's much harder though is working out how to disengage from Google (I'm using Firefox and DuckDuckGo for search). I've largely moved away from Gmail, preferring ProtonMail who are based in Europe and now likely growing exponentially.
For messaging, most of the time I use Viber (also big in Ukraine) whose HQ is based in Cyprus and which is owned by the Japanese firm Rakuten. An alternative (but American) is Signal.
I would love to hear your views on data privacy and how we can improve our comms & Internet use in ways which boost the European developers, keeps us under the umbrella of EU data protection, and ideally hurts those American tech firms now capitulation to an authoritarian president surrounded by his faithful disciples.
Can/should Europe start the process of disengaging from USA platforms and what's the best strategy we can come up with? How do we best defend against harmful state & corporate actors to ensure our democracies survive?
Rory Stewart made an interesting comment on his podcast recently about the ‘tech bros’ all appearing at Trump’s inauguration. He said that they don’t necessarily like what he’s doing, but they are literally scared of going to jail. Hence a few big donations & smile for a few hours.
What does that signify?
It’s simple- corruption staring you in the face. 😩
I took the sort of middle ground.
Dropped my guardian amount to a paltry $2 a month as a protest and gave the rest to Carole.
Welcome to the new economy now what?
I was just thinking the same thing!
Thanks for letting us know what's going on at the Guardian. I just wrote to them.
"Dear Guardian,
I am a subscriber and have been for a few years now. But I just read on Carole Cadwalladr's substack that you’re firing over 100 journalists and replacing them with Open AI. What the eff, Guardian?
How can you publish articles on the devastating effect of AI on the environment, as well as the plagiarism and bias in what OpenAI produces, and then embrace it? How can you be talking one message and doing something so contrary to your own values?
I am going to debate whether or not to even continue subscribing in the light of this, and I’m posting this on my Facebook page and making it shareable. People need to know that the Guardian is apparently selling out to the system it purports to critique and resist.
If you send me some mealy-mouthed reply or one that doesn’t stand up to an AI check, I’m unsubscribing and making that public too. Come on, Guardian, you’ve been ‘our’ paper since the 80s when I started buying the paper version. Don’t sell us all out now.
Rachael Vaughan"
There appears to be the fragile grassroots of resistance to Trumpism from within, in particular from the legal (including conservative) profession, in a few recent days (since only a week or so). The big question is what the 9-member tainted Supreme Court, SCOTUS, will decide when it either confirms that Trump&Co are OK to continue on his autocratic democracy-destructing path or comes to its constitutional senses and turns this awful tide.
And whether, should SCOTUS suddenly rediscover its moral compass, Trump would obey its dictates.
The four Christian Nationalists have no moral compass. The only hope is Roberts and Amy Cone Barrett.
Carole,
Thanks for your reporting. I have forwarded your previous message, It's a Coup, to probably 10 people in hopes of spreading awareness, and perhaps starting a discussion.
I got a "yup" from my sister which speaks volumes!
I will continue to sound the alarm. Your writings are a bucket of cold water in the face!
I’m reading every single article you write and pushing it out to everyone I know
Bill, this is exactly what must be done by members of a >civil< society.
As a retired journalist I’m in awe of your tireless reporting. You’re right, everyone is going along as if it’s business as usual, even the MAGA voters who think they just voted for cheaper eggs. Just like everyone who ever voted for a dictator because they thought they would never do ‘those’ things. Well guess what - the status quo has changed and personally I’m scared to death about it.
Thank you for continuing to cover these important issues, I can only imagine the threats you must be facing. I cancelled my voluntary subscription to the Guardian because of what they have been doing and am subscribing to Substacks, The Power included as of today, instead. I also cancelled my NYT subscription this month for their woeful coverage of the coup and will subscribe to further journalists on an individual basis. It seems like we have to curate our own newspapers these days.
I found reading Professor Timothy Snyders books and following him on social media platforms was helpful in adding even more depth to understanding Putin’s motivation and the strategies he employed to put us where we are now.
The Road to Unfreedom , On Tyranny. He also has a substack.
Thank you, Carole. Absolutely overwhelming and necessary. I reposted on my Facebook page.
Oh thanks so much for that, Carol. Really appreciate it. I'm trying to put stuff out on different channels, but there are so many of them and I've been a Facebook refusenik from before it was fashionable...
agreeing with every word and what panics me most is that so few seem to be panicking (that egg muffin business). If (theoretically) US and Russia were aligned, that would mean 88% of entire world's nuclear arsenal aligned, for example. Two criminals in position to annihilate us all at any moment. Using it as a threat to any opposition. If there's any solace then at least attack on "Whitehall blob" was not synchronised with DOGE attack.
I have a potentially naive question. As someone who works in journalism, do you think there is a way to hold larger journalistic organizations responsible for accurate reporting? I currently have a Times subscription and am unsure what makes a bigger impact - emailing them to say I subscribe but am appalled at their reporting? Cancelling and telling them the same? Or is it naivety to think that this would make any difference.
Thank you for that question, Ashley. I would say that news organisations would be insane not to take note of readers' comments (though it was exactly what the Guardian did when it "sold" the Observer to protests from hundreds of people). My suggestion would be to email the editor, chair of the board etc, too.
Thanks, Carole. I sent an email a few days ago. I’m not expecting a reply, but let’s hope it counts for something.
I wrote to Time with a cover idea:
“THE MOST HATED MAN IN THE WORLD “
(Trump’s picture)
Silly idea.
Why, it’s true
Keep up the brilliant, brutally honest, marvelously articulate and utterly authentic journalism! Having recently discovered your work I now count on you for your crystal clear insight into the ongoing catastrophe and its underlying engines. The coup.
One thought I would like to contribute to the bias you alert us to: I have observed for years that, working hand-in-hand with American’s deep seated ‘status quo / normalcy bias’ is, a severe lack of ‘negative imagination’ – the rare ability to conceive of and internalize the harsh reality that worst-case outcomes can happen, do happen, that they can happen to me, and can in fact happen tomorrow.
In general humans have proven to be abysmal at taking decisive action to prevent future threats (climate change!), and Americans are more abysmal than most. Political risk adviser Raul Gallegos observes that negative imagination was the key deficiency that contributed to America’s serial failures, over decades, to craft an effective policy to deal with the collapse of Venezuela He points out that our great wealth and individual liberty are a strength that has become a weakness. It makes us prone to hubris and
overconfidence such that we are unprepared, indeed
blindsided by events such as the 9/11 terrorist strike
and the rise of Donald Trump. This same dynamic left us woefully unprepared for the COVID-19 pandemic and the chaos and abandoned civilians that attended the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan.
Working in mutually reinforcing combination with status-quo bias, these two ‘engines’ are resulting in, as far as I can observe, almost all American adults blithely continuing with their normal activities. The house is on fire, the bank has been hacked, a wrecking crew is carrying out a coup real-time, and they are worrying about their next Amazon purchase.
Having worked for years to end U.S. wars on central and south american countries since Reagan, I find "status quo bias....because things will return to normal" quite familiar.
After decades of practicing those interventions with impunity, the current state of affairs feels in a way as though it is our turn. Our turn to deal with the unimaginable state overthrow and cruelty the U.S. dished out with little domestic interest.
Naomi Klein observed long ago that "Impunity breeds a kind of delusional decadence."
True, wherever impunity is found.
Thanks for your work. Only suggestion is to include more historic normalization, less shock.
Robert in Vermont
Perfect quotation from Klein. Thanks for your work in trying to elucidate how, over the years, wherever corrupt political players are allowed to hijack power it eventually harms all of us. Also agree about framing this era with less shock and more historical context.
Thank you, Carole, as ever, for another brilliant update on the machinations of corrupt individuals and the huge danger they pose for all of us. George Monbiot in a recent Double Down news video referred to a kind of Neoliberal takeover 'blueprint' (to paraphrase badly) that is enabled by tech and which can be quickly rolled out by governments seeking to impose authoritarian rule, hence the rapid spread of right-wing populism. The instant global reach that tech provides creates unprecedented power, which is why this is all so very frightening.