August Events; Premium Tier Subscriptions

Quarterly reports and forecasts, small-group Zooms, and a more personalized experience

Welcome back to Lucid, and hello to all new subscribers. I wanted to give you the monthly calendar for August, and also tell you about Lucid’s three subscription tiers. I work hard to provide you with excellent content, which leaves less time for brand and marketing considerations. I realized that I have rarely (or maybe never!) explained the subscription options and introduced the premium tier.

Free subscribers have access to a lot of content, all of it shareable. There is no paywall on the weekly essays I write for you, and the Substack Live conversations are open to everyone.

So why become a paid subscriber?

Paid subscribers can participate in the weekly Q&A, where you can ask questions of me and my guests live, and be part of a congenial community. Some people have attended every week for years, and it is always wonderful to gather and be together for the hour.

If you can’t attend these sessions, due to time zone or other issues, you can view the conversation at lucid.substack.com, videos tab, which now is an incredible archive of conversations with amazing guests regarding autocracy and democracy. You can view it here.

Premium Tier Subscriptions: Substack also calls these Founding Subscriptions, and each author is free to design their own menu of benefits. Several longtime premium subscribers have told me that Lucid’s offers the best value for its combination of direct-access events and exclusive analysis.

What you get: quarterly assessments and forecasts that cover U.S. and global developments. I also hold quarterly small-group Zooms to discuss them and whatever else seems important to the group. They are normally on Sunday nights, 8-9pmET, but I am open to alternating or adding other times in the future so that people from more areas in the world can participate. If premium members have a specific interest, I try and accommodate it in assessments and questions.

The next premium zoom is August 23, 8-9pmET, and I will be sending out a Q3 assessment/Q4 forecast a day or so before that, and you’ll get a link at 5pmET that day to register.

If you have questions about this tier of membership (or any tier), you can reach me at contact.ruthbenghiat@gmail.com.

I am grateful for your support. It allows me to have assistance with research, the Q&As, respond to problems you have with payments or email, and manage a newsletter with more than 211,000 subscribers.

Lucid is also the only woman-authored newsletter among the top 12 bestsellers in the world politics category.

You can find the Lucid support page and FAQ here.

August Event Calendar

Note: I had advertised a Substack Live on August 12 at noonET with Daron Acemoglu, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. That’s no longer happening as a Live. Instead, I will record an interview with him on Zoom that day and post it for everyone.

Our next Q&A will take place on Sunday, August 2, 8-9pmET. Our guest will be one of the country’s premier disinformation experts, Renee DiResta, who is the author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality, and recently won a court victory against Stephen Miller’s America First Legal Defense Fund. Paying subscribers will receive a link on Sunday at 5pmET to register for the Zoom gathering.

On August 7, 1-2pmET, our guest will be Steven A. Cash, who is the Executive Director of The Steady State, an organization made up of over 400 former national security and intelligence officials concerned about American democracy, rule of law, and national security. He served as former Senior Advisor the Under Secretary for Intelligence at DHS, as Chief Counsel and Staff Director (Minority) to a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and at CIA from 1994-2001.

August 14, 1-2pmET: corruption and oligarchy expert Brooke Harrington, author of Offshore: Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism.

August 21, 1-2pmET: Barb McQuade, former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan and author of the new book The Fix: Saving America from the Corruption of a Mob-Style Government.

August 28, 1-2pmET: Australian journalist, bestselling author, and activist Sarah Wilson, whose latest book is Eat The Stars: How To Live Fully in a Collapsing World. We’ll talk about climate, hope, and love. I know this is not a good time for my thousands of Australian subscribers, but you can send me any questions for Sarah ahead of time at to contact.ruthbenghiat@gmail.com.

And here is a flower from the garden, offered as a thank you to everyone for reading and following Lucid.