The Free Press
It’s Monday, January 20. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Coming up: Donald Trump the rabble-rouser, the debut of $MELANIA the meme coin, and why the 47th president appeals to black and Latino voters. Plus, three Israeli hostages are released after 471 harrowing days in captivity.
But first: a second Trump term.
Today, around noon, Donald J. Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States.
The Free Press has been in Washington, D.C., for the last 72 hours covering this historic moment—and already, we’ve been breaking news. Texas senator Ted Cruz told Bari that Trump’s 90-day extension for TikTok could lead to “a very dangerous situation.” Speaker of the House Mike Johnson revealed the time, one year ago, when he met Joe Biden in the Oval Office and the president couldn’t remember an executive order he had signed just three weeks earlier. In the coming days, we’ll share more conversations about the upcoming administration and the national vibe shift it signifies.
But right now, we’re handing the mic to the man who predicted the rise of MAGA more than ten years ago: Martin Gurri.
In 2014—one year before Donald Trump even declared his first White House run—Martin forecast the ascent of MAGA with his seminal book, The Revolt of the Public. The printing press transformed humanity in the 1400s, but Martin argued that the internet has ushered in even more radical change in our current moment, leading to Trump, Brexit, WallStreetBets on Reddit, BLM, the yellow vests movement, and more—while our elite institutions have grown increasingly out of touch.
Fury at the system led to Trump’s first norm-bashing presidency in 2016, Martin says, but this time around, the 47th president has a mandate to lead. And what will that look like over the next four years, exactly?
Here’s Martin:
“During his first term of office Trump’s energies were concentrated on negation”—but “this time around, all thoughts are turned to action.” The president-elect has “attracted a band of talented eccentrics”—including Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard, Robert Kennedy Jr., and J.D. Vance—“who are united in their repudiation of the status quo but disagree about much else.”
And “whether harmony can flow from this chorus of soloists will depend on the president-elect’s skill as a conductor.”
Read Martin’s piece, “Trump Has a Mandate to Lead. What Comes Next?”
A Long Line of Rabble-Rousers
Many critics say Donald Trump is a demagogue. But is that true? It’s complicated, as Adam Rubenstein discovered in his interview with Charles Zug, assistant professor of political science at the University of Missouri and the author of Demagogues in American Politics.
Zug says it’s “difficult to think of a more effective demagogue than Donald Trump—if by ‘effective’ we simply mean someone who uses public speech to amass and maintain power. I can’t think of a single politician more adept at evading responsibility, undermining the credibility of his adversaries through ridicule (rather than through reasoned criticism), and recruiting followers into his own simplistic worldview of what America is and should be.”
And just wait till you hear what Zug has to say about Greta Thunberg.
Read the interview here: “Yes, Trump Is a Demagogue. But So Were Many of His Forebears.”
The Rising Democratic Coalition Fell. Now What?
Today is not just Donald Trump’s inauguration day. It’s also the day Americans celebrate the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. The irony, of course, is that for decades, the Democratic Party has been the political home for minority voters. But a record number voted for Trump in this election, a stark signal that the Democrats are struggling to maintain their loyalty.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) represents a heavily African American and Latino district in the Bronx that swung significantly toward Trump. The incoming president, says Torres, has succeeded in “creating the kind of multiracial working-class coalition that Democrats like me dream of building.”
But if Democrats want to win back people of color, Torres argues, then they could start by speaking to them. “Listening to working-class people of color means unshackling ourselves from self-anointed socialist saviors who speak falsely in their name,” he writes.
The hostage deal has finally begun. On Sunday, Hamas released three Israeli hostages—Romi Gonen, Emily Damari, and Doron Steinbrecher—to the Red Cross, in the first phase of the ceasefire deal. In return, Israel has released roughly 90 Palestinian prisoners. By the time the deal has been completed, 33 hostages will be exchanged for nearly a thousand Palestinian prisoners. Families sobbed with relief and held their loved ones tightly as they were reunited after 15 grueling months in captivity. Mandy Damari, whose daughter was released, thanked “everyone who never stopped fighting for Emily throughout this horrendous ordeal, and who never stopped saying her name.” She added that “while Emily’s nightmare in Gaza is over, for too many other families the impossible wait continues.” Read Matti Friedman on the prisoner’s dilemma Israel has had to strike to make this deal happen.
On Friday, the Supreme Court upheld a federal law calling for the Chinese-owned TikTok to be banned or sold by January 19. Which, of course, was yesterday. But fear not: On Truth Social, Donald Trump promised to extend the deadline for a TikTok ban or sale through executive order, suggesting a joint venture in which the U.S. would have 50 percent ownership between “the current owners and/or new owners.” He didn’t give details on how that would work. But he now has 90 days to figure it out. In the meantime, TikTok has flickered back to life.
Last week, I reported on Rhonda Fleming, a federal prisoner who sued the Biden administration for forcing her to share facilities, including showers and restrooms, with male felons who identify as transgender—arguing that these conditions violated her constitutional right to bodily privacy. On Wednesday, Judge Mark E. Walker in Tallahassee, Florida ruled against Fleming. “We could do an appeal,” Jeff Bristol, one of Fleming’s attorneys, later told The Free Press. “But ultimately, the main goal here is for Trump to change the policy and then we don’t need to appeal, because it’s moot.”
And it looks like Fleming’s lawyer got his wish! On day one of his presidency, Trump plans to issue 200 executive orders. Yesterday, our Emily Yoffe broke the story about Trump’s day one executive order on “male and female,” which, among other things, “ends the practice of housing men in women’s prisons and taxpayer funded ‘transition’ for male prisoners.” Other orders will declare the border crisis a national emergency, establish the elimination of cartels as a priority for the government, rev up energy production, and end all DEI programs in the federal government.
Trump’s crypto meme coin took a 36 percent dive following the launch of his wife’s meme coin, $MELANIA, on Sunday. In a nod to his crypto-loving supporters, the incoming president announced his meme coin on Friday in a Truth Social post celebrating his election win. Despite his wife’s token stealing the spotlight, Trump’s coin $TRUMP is still up 7,000 percent from its debut. Indeed, it appears that Trump’s coin may never surrender as it continues to sell for around $47, while $MELANIA costs a meager $13.
Democratic senators have accused OpenAI’s Sam Altman of trying to “cozy up” with Trump by making—are you ready for this?—a big donation to his inaugural fund. The letter’s signatories, including Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), claimed that Altman’s $1 million gift “appears to be an effort to influence and sway the actions and policies of the incoming administration.” Altman, a prolific donor to Democratic candidates, said he wishes the Trump White House “every bit of success” in its AI arms race against China. “We have to be ahead,” he told Bari Weiss on Honestly last month.
Vivek Ramaswamy has “worn out his welcome” with Team Trump and will depart DOGE to run for governor in Ohio. Sources close to the DOGE effort say that Elon Musk has been frustrated with Ramaswamy for his failure to participate in the program’s “heavy lifting,” CBS reported. To add insult to injury, current Ohio governor Mike DeWine recently passed over a hopeful Ramaswamy to replace J.D. Vance in the Senate, instead tapping his lieutenant governor Jon Husted.
Former Oakland mayor Sheng Thao was indicted on federal bribery charges on Friday. Thao, who was recalled in a November election, allegedly green-lit a scheme to pay her boyfriend $95,000 for a “no-show” contracting job and $75,000 for a campaign mailer disparaging her 2022 opponent. Thao, who pleaded not guilty, maintains she did nothing wrong.
U.S. regulators are investigating property damage to homes in Turks and Caicos that may have been caused by fallen SpaceX rocket debris. While officials in the U.S. and the two Caribbean islands confirmed no one was injured, the space exploration company has grounded all spacecraft pending the investigation, it said in a statement Friday.
The Momfluencer Who Went to Jail
And now. . . for something different. You may remember Ruby Franke. From 2015 to 2020, Ruby was one of the most popular momfluencers on the internet. Her channel, 8 Passengers, documented her daily life in Springville, Utah, as a wife, LDS church member, and mother of six children whose adorable antics made for compulsively shareable content. But appearances can be deceiving. Today, Ruby is serving a multiyear prison sentence for child abuse, which her eldest child Shari details in her new memoir, The House of My Mother.
Writing for The Free Press, Kat Rosenfield argues that Ruby wasn’t a monster to begin with. Initially, she was following the incentives of the internet’s attention economy, and she went down an unusually dark path. But, Kat writes, “she set out on that path the moment she invited millions of strangers into her home to watch her children grow up—posting the type of content which you can find today on the Instagram and Facebook accounts of parents everywhere.”
Read Kat’s piece on what parents ought to learn from Ruby Franke’s disturbing downfall.
Any Executive Orders on drug prices, etc.?
Vivek running in OH?....geez, how many "wake-up" calls can this guy take?