Anand Giridharadas

Last night while watching All In I discovered a new journalist to watch: Anand Giridharadas, a columnist for the New York Times. Aside from a crazy hairstyle, Giridharadas offered multiple thought-provoking points about Donald Trump and our current climate of fear. The two best moments: His reaction to Trump joking about killing journalists before a fawning crowd, and his discussion of the normalizing effect of media coverage, as what's sayable moves further and further in one direction.

You watch the Democratic debate [Saturday, December 19] the number of questions that were essentially versions of "which freedoms do we need to give up" — Trump set that agenda. And the Democratic debate moderators are saying, Okay, we accept the premise that freedom must be curtailed. Well, when did we accept that premise? Now, it's just a question of which freedoms must be curtailed.

At another point he asks, "What is it about our system that provides no checks on this?"

Here's the video on MSNBC's annoying website. After the 15-second ad you have to sit through, there's a bunch of footage of Obama's recent interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep. Giridharadas comes on at about 2:25.