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TGIF: Ennui the People Nellie Bowles
Hello and welcome back to the week that was, with me, your dictator.
→ America the Exhausted: It turns out the majority of Americans are just like us. They look at the politics of the day, the battles, and the options we have, and they say: oh god, this again? And: really? And: it must be time for bed soon, right? From a new Pew report: “Nearly two-thirds of Americans (65%) say they always or often feel exhausted when thinking about politics, while 55% feel angry. By contrast, just 10% say they always or often feel hopeful about politics, and even fewer (4%) are excited.” I want to know the 4 percent who think of a Biden vs. Trump election, or who look at our endless border crisis finger-pointing, and think “I’m pumped.” Me, I think to describe the particular exhaustion of the moment we must turn to the most exhausted people in the world (the French) and their perfect word: ennui, which translates to a sort of deep boredom or tedious pain. TFP readers need to start smoking and wearing berets and then we’re all set. There’s no more Moral Majority. We are the Exhausted Majority. Our slogan is Please, Just Stop.
→ Obviously I don’t support giving hand jobs at Beetlejuice: I want to start with that. But let’s back up: Lauren Boebert, a right-wing congresswoman from Colorado and a real loon, was on a date at the Beetlejuice musical when she and her male companion started getting frisky in the theater. AS ONE DOES. But it turns out, as you sit in a dark theater, exceptional night vision cameras are pointing at you all the time. And of course the footage leaked, showing her date giving her a breast exam and showing Boebert doing something I need a straight woman to explain to me. Over the pants, mind you, but it didn’t seem right. On the one hand, the trashiness on display here is profound. Beetlejuice? It’s a family show! But on the other hand, TGIF is pro-sex. And for a Congress on the brink of death, with our leaders nodding off and periodically freezing on camera, it’s remarkable to see someone with a. . . I guess we could say. . . a pulse.
→ Fetterman, meanwhile, refuses to wear a suit: Senator Chuck Schumer has softened the Senate floor dress code to accommodate America’s older cousin, John Fetterman, who prefers cargo shorts and oversized sweatshirts. Now, I know the proper argument here: decorum and standards. First it’s Beetlejuice hand jobs and now sweatshirts (not chic, trendy ones like you might find in Silicon Valley—I mean horrible, baggy ones). Yes, I agree we have fallen. But I have to admit: I’ve never been to a formal event that a pair of Tevas couldn’t complement. Summer party? I’ve got lovely pastel Tevas. Formal occasion performing my role as wife of a media CEO? That’s okay—I have them in platform black. I guess the depressing part is just that our senators don’t take themselves any more seriously than your average L.A. mom. A feeling is coming over me. Say it with me: ennui.
→ We must save democracy by establishing one-party rule: There’s a line going around media circles: this election is about “saving democracy” (aren’t they all anymore) and as such, no one should report critically on Biden, our president. Here’s NBC’s Ben Collins, concurring with Guardian columnist Margaret Sullivan: “With democracy on the ballot, the mainstream press must change its ways.” Ben and Sullivan are arguing that “both-sides” reporting misinforms the public, since it’s not two parties but Democracy versus. . . something maybe illegal. And so stories like Biden’s age or finances are not important to cover given the broader situation. “Everyone outside of the news business should demand cable TV networks, newspapers and news outlets abide by it,” Ben writes. And what I say to that is: yes, Ben Collins! We agree! No one in your smart, educated milieu full of good reporters should report on anything interesting regarding our president, and those that do should be shamed into submission to you, Ben Collins. The only place Americans should be able to get both-sides misinformation is at bad places like www.thefp.com, for only eight bucks a month.
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Seven Objects—And What They Say About the Election The Editors
The most physically imposing picture of Donald Trump is the one he almost didn’t survive. You’ve seen it: The former president stands silhouetted against the sky, fist pumped, jaw jutted, bright red blood streaked across his face like war paint. The blood is from a bullet that missed its mark; the blood means that Trump should be dead, but isn’t. He’s still standing, all six-plus feet and 200 pounds of him, in the flesh, as corporeal as it gets.
In the wake of the assassination attempt, many commentators declared the election over. That raised fist, that frayed ear, the way Trump’s top teeth bore down on his lower lip as he shouted his defiance: It was powerful. It was undeniable. You’d never see Joe Biden standing up like that after taking a bullet in front of a crowd of thousands.
The image of Trump was symbolic, iconic, and instantly viral. Within 24 hours, it had appeared on the front page of virtually every newspaper in the world—by which time millions of people had made it their social media avatars and memed it into oblivion. It adorned miniskirts, coffee cups, and balaclavas; supporters displayed it in their homes and tattooed it onto their bodies. Most importantly, the assassination attempt caused a bump for Trump in swing states; if he wins the presidency, it will be at least in part because of that photograph.
But while that image of Trump may be the most powerful symbol of this insane race, it’s not the only one. Like the coconut emoji that became synonymous with Kamala Harris’s campaign. Or the cats beloved by liberal women (or, allegedly, eaten by immigrant hordes). These and more have been nominated by our staff as symbols of the 2024 election. Read on for the list of (mostly) inanimate objects that we’ll never see the same way again. —Kat Rosenfield
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This is America Judd Legum
Former President Trump has recaptured the presidency. He is poised to win all seven swing states and, for the first time in three tries, a narrow victory in the popular vote.
For tens of millions of Americans, the result is distressing and confounding. How did a man who incited a violent insurrection, was convicted with dozens of felonies, and based his campaign around a collection of lies win a majority of votes?
There will be plenty of debate about this question. But there is one thing we already know for sure: This is America.
Right now.
What will America look like in the future? What kind of country will it be in 2029 or 2039? That will depend on how we react to this moment.
This was a long campaign; many people will need time to process what happened on Tuesday. That is more than reasonable.
But, whenever you are ready, Popular Information will be right here — digging up the facts, rooting out corruption, and holding the powerful accountable. We do not do this work because progress is linear, reliable, and guaranteed. We do this work because it is not.
Today, I’d like to hear from you. How are you feeling? What are your hopes and fears for the future? I’ll be reading your responses in the comment section below.
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Trump Wins. And Reality Bites. Bari Weiss
We’re sitting down to write this at 2 a.m., and by now it’s clear: Donald Trump is set to be the 47th president of the United States, and on track to win the electoral college and the popular vote. It is a stunning comeback.
The red wave that wasn’t in 2022 came crashing down tonight. Republicans have retaken control of the Senate. Control of Congress is still in the balance.
Going into tonight, Nate Silver ran 80,000 simulations of what could happen. In 40,012 of them, Kamala Harris won. Every pollster and pundit said the same: It was gonna be a squeaker. Too close to call. We wouldn’t know for days, maybe even weeks!
That’s not how it went down. Not at all.
Trump had won Pennsylvania before the night was out. And by 2:30 in the morning, he was onstage, surrounded by his family and Dana White, delivering his victory speech in West Palm Beach.
Tonight at our election party, the British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore said he hadn’t seen a comeback like this since Charles de Gaulle. But perhaps the only American echo of tonight is Richard Nixon. As Commentary editor John Podhoretz wrote on Twitter: “This is the most staggering political comeback in American history. Period. Nixon has held the comeback trophy for nearly 60 years. No longer.”
Why Trump won so convincingly—and why Kamala lost so fully—are themes we’ll cover over the coming weeks. But for now, enough from us.
Somehow, after livestreaming for six hours, we have a packed Front Page on this historic day beginning with our Eli Lake on How Trump Won.
Here’s Eli:
Donald Trump ended his first term in disgrace, hit with a second impeachment after his supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The 2022 midterm candidates he endorsed—Herschel Walker, Mehmet Oz, Kari Lake—all went down in flames. In 2023, he was declared guilty of sexually assaulting the writer E. Jean Carroll in a civil case. This past May, he was convicted in a Manhattan court on 34 felony counts for improperly reporting hush money payments. Overall, he has faced 116 indictments. Even now, the New York State attorney general is trying to punish the Trump Organization with nearly $500 million in fines, claiming that he unlawfully inflated the value of his properties.
And yet here he is: America’s 47th president.
How did he do it?
Read Eli Lake: “How Trump Won.”
“We Blew It, Joe”
This race was the Democrats’ to lose. And they blew it. Badly. As of 2 a.m., there wasn’t a single county in the country in which Harris outperformed Trump. What went wrong? Peter Savodnik has some ideas.
“They didn’t lose because they didn’t spend enough money,” writes Peter. “They didn’t lose because they failed to trot out enough celebrity influencers. They lost because they were consumed by their own self-flattery, their own sense of self-importance.”
And above all else, they lost because they lied. “They seemed to think that Americans wouldn’t mind that they had pretended Joe Biden was ‘sharp as a tack,’ that they actually orchestrated a behind-the-scenes switcheroo, that the party that portrayed itself as the nation’s answer to fascism nominated its standard-bearer without consulting a single voter.”
Last night, the truth caught up with them.
Read Peter Savodnik: “We Blew It, Joe!”
We’re Going to Be Okay
Deep breath. In the run-up to last night, we heard a lot about how this was going to be the last American election—from both sides. Oprah Winfrey, speaking Monday evening at Kamala’s last rally in Philadelphia, said: “If we don’t show up tomorrow, it is entirely possible that we will not have the opportunity to cast a ballot again.” Elon Musk tweeted to his more than 200 million followers: “Very few Americans realize that, if Trump is NOT elected, this will be the last election.”
We call bullshit.
America is going to be okay.
Read our editorial: “Repeat After Us: This Is Not the Last Election.”
The presidential race was only one of last night’s shocking stories. Here are some of the others:
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After four years in the minority, Republicans have regained control of the Senate—as many expected ahead of the election. Their new majority was solidified as Republican Jim Justice won Joe Manchin’s seat in West Virginia, political outsider and MAGA whisperer Bernie Moreno defeated incumbent Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Ted Cruz won in his third competitive race for reelection, and Deb Fischer secured reelection in an unexpectedly close Nebraska race.
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The battle for the House may not be settled for days, but it’s possible the Republicans could cling to control, setting the stage for a unified GOP in Washington. Here’s a smattering of the closest races that may hand the House to the Republicans: In Iowa, Rep. Zach Nunn held on to his seat in a race Democrats viewed as flippable; and in the increasingly red suburbs of NYC, New York Rep. Mike Lawler staved off a challenge from progressive Democrat Mondaire Jones.
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In a scene reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s distraught voters in 2016, Harris’s supporters left her increasingly dour election night watch party in tears as the candidate delayed her address until Wednesday afternoon. Biden did not attend the party, according to White House officials, in yet another indication of the distance placed between the incumbent and his vice president: “Tonight, the president and First Lady will watch election results in the White House residence with longtime aides and senior White House staff.”
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Florida’s abortion amendment failed, leaving the state’s six-week ban in place. The current law, supported by Republican governor Ron DeSantis, has exceptions for rape, incest, human trafficking, and the life of the mother. The amendment would have enshrined a right to an abortion any time before viability—roughly 24 weeks of pregnancy—and any time after when recommended by a healthcare provider. Abortion advocates outspent their opponents 8 to 1. But they needed 60 percent of the vote. In the end they got 57 percent, with 43 voting against. (ICYMI: Read Olivia Reingold on “How Abortion Became ‘the Defund the Police of the GOP.’ ”) A separate amendment to legalize marijuana also failed in the Sunshine State.
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Prop 36, California’s tough-on-crime amendment, passed with overwhelming support. The ballot measure reverses Prop 47, a 2014 law that downgraded felonies like thefts of under $950 and drug violations to misdemeanors. Los Angeles district attorney George Gascón, a mastermind behind Prop 47, lost to law-and-order candidate Nathan Hochman.
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Kentucky’s school choice amendment failed, with 65 percent of voters casting their ballots against the measure. The amendment would have revised the state constitution to permit taxpayer money to go toward nonpublic education. (ICYMI: Read Frannie Block, “School Choice Is Usually a Conservative Issue. Not in Kentucky.”)
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New York passed Proposition 1, ostensibly a bill to enshrine abortion rights, but really a Trojan horse allowing biological males into female spaces. (ICYMI: Read Josh Code for The Free Press on what this anti-equality measure means for the Big Apple.)
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Massachusetts failed to pass a ballot measure that would have legalized psychedelics, including psilocybin (mushrooms) and DMT. If the ballot measure had passed, the state would have joined Oregon and Colorado as the third state in the nation to legalize the recreational use of psychedelics.
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Ann Selzer ate her words after she hung her reputation on an especially optimistic Iowa poll this weekend that showed Harris leading the state by three points. She told The Daily Beast: “I’ll be reviewing data from multiple sources with hopes of learning why that happened. And, I welcome what that process might teach me.”
If you missed our Free Press livestream—thanks to the hundreds of thousands of you who tuned in!—you can watch it here. There were a lot more people in the green room, and we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to get them on the record on the burning issues. . .
Who will win World War III?
“America, baby.” —Coleman Hughes
“Trick question. There will be no World War III.” —Michael Shellenberger
“Israel.” —Dasha Nekraskova
“China.” —Jesse Singal
“I’m hoping that Donald Trump becomes president, and we don’t find out, because I don’t think it will happen if he’s president for four years. But there’s one thing that the democracies have shown—that they’re very slow to recognize threats—but once they are mobilized, they win.” —Matt Continetti
“Assuming we get India on our side, the Western world.”
—Brianna Wu
What have you changed your mind about since the last election?
“I think Trump’s gotten creepier since 2020. I think he’s gotten more vengeful. I think he’s gotten angrier, even though I think he’s got more reason to be angry.” —Rikki Schlott
“Tech censorship and the danger it poses to democracy. I think in 2020 I was a little bit more accepting that the tech companies as private entities had the right to police discourse. But in the years since, I’ve seen that they wield an almost government-like power that I think needs to be held in check.” —Matt Continetti
“In 2020 I was like, oh, the Democratic Party is just the party of the professional managerial elite, but Bidenism has been interesting economically.” —Sohrab Ahmari
“I’ve decided not to panic over the possibility of a Donald Trump victory because I did that in 2016. I can’t really get there emotionally this time. I just feel dead inside.”
—Kat Rosenfield
On what the next president should do to unite America:
“Chill the fuck out.” —Jesse Singal
“Make clear he doesn’t hate the other half of the country.”
—Coleman Hughes
“Focus on posterity instead of populism.” —Peter Meijer
“Promise to protect pet squirrels from government overreach.” —Kat Rosenfield
“Lower taxes.” —Adam Rubenstein
The biggest gaffe of the election?
“Kamala Harris choosing Tim Walz instead of Josh Shapiro.” —Nellie Bowles
“Kamala lying about working at McDonald’s.” —Dasha Nekrasova
“Tony Hinchcliffe and Joe Biden had the biggest impact on this election—other than the names on the ticket—because by not bowing out gracefully sooner, he set her up in a position to look dishonest no matter what she said.” —Noam Dworman
“The Biden campaign.” —Rikki Schlott
What do you make of our vice president–elect?
“J.D. Vance is one of the most pernicious and pathetic figures in American politics and culture.” —Nick Gillespie
“J.D. Vance is a thoughtful, conscientious, patriotic, decent person who learns, adapts, and course-corrects.” —Reihan Salam
“J.D. Vance is disturbingly hot.” —Brianna Wu
“J.D. Vance is held back by his loyalty to Trump.” —Coleman Hughes
“The only person at Yale worth knowing.” —Catherine Herridge
Why did Trump win?
“The more you learn about Kamala, the less you like. Maybe she should have been hiding in the basement.”
—Catherine Herridge
“Immigration. He’s the strongest anti-immigration president we’ve had in decades. At the same time, we had the biggest immigration crisis we’ve had. So 2 + 2 = 4.”
—Coleman Hughes
“Maybe because of the border. Maybe it’s because of Kamala’s personality. And she also did kind of a terrible job at being vice president.” —Josie Savodnik, age 9
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