In partnership with the ACLU of Southern California
The 2025 Fall ALOUD season opens with a not-to-be missed conversation about the current state of America presented in partnership with the ACLU of Southern California. Join acclaimed journalist, co-host of Pod Save the World, and two-time New York Times bestseller Ben Rhodes and Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California Chandra S. Bhatnagar as they discuss Rhodes’ essential new book After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made.
A seasoned political journalist and former Deputy National Security Advisor and speechwriter for President Barack Obama, Rhodes examines various issues and events that have paved the way for the unchecked nationalism and authoritarianism endangering our democracy today. Rhodes and Bhatnagar will discuss where America has gone wrong and how essential it is now to fight for what America can and should be.
“Vital reading for Americans and people anywhere who seek to understand what is happening ‘after the fall’ of the global system created by the United States” — New York Journal of Books
Featured Author and Moderator:
Ben Rhodes
Ben Rhodes is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, co-host of Pod Save the World, a contributor to MSNBC, and the author of two New York Times bestsellers: After the Fall: The Rise of Authoritarianism in the World We Made and The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House. From 2009 to 2017, he was a Deputy National Security Advisor and speechwriter to President Barack Obama, participating in all of President Obama’s key decisions on foreign policy. His work has also been published in The New York Review of Books, The Atlantic, and Foreign Affairs.
Chandra S. Bhatnagar
Chandra S. Bhatnagar is executive director of the ACLU of Southern California. He joined the affiliate in July 2025 and is a leading expert on civil rights and human rights with a distinguished 20-year track record as an organizational leader and changemaker spanning the nonprofit sector, federal government, and higher education.
From his time at the ACLU national office’s Human Rights Program to his work under the Obama administration at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and at his previous post as the assistant vice chancellor for civil rights at UCLA, Chandra has creatively used litigation, community organizing, public education, and policy advocacy to defend communities who have been historically marginalized.
In 2015, Chandra was part of a legal team that successfully represented H-2B guest workers from India, who were defrauded and exploited in a labor trafficking scheme in Mississippi and Texas.
