The Free Press
It’s Wednesday, November 13. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. I’m River Page, the Free Press’s unofficial Florida correspondent.
Coming up: Eli Lake on what the Democratic Party should do to win again; how a 12-year-old boy survived nine days in the wilderness; Jay Solomon on Qatar; and a ton of news out of Washington.
But first, a quick mental-health check on American progressives a week out from Trump’s election.
Exactly eight years ago, on November 13, 2016, Saturday Night Live aired its first episode after the election of Donald Trump. Leonard Cohen was fresh in his grave and Kate McKinnon, dressed as a defeated Hillary Clinton, opened the show with a piano rendition of his elegiac hymn “Hallelujah.” There was no joke. Nobody was laughing. Nobody was supposed to anymore.
Looking back, SNL’s cold open that night was an early symptom of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). In the months that followed, the sickness spread.
Democrats, unable to accept the real reasons for Hillary Clinton’s defeat—the economic consequences of globalization; a disenfranchised working class; and the cultural gap between the elite and the country—turned instead to other explanations.
Journalists in the legacy press spent two years reporting on a conspiracy theory—that Trump had been installed by the Russian government—and won Pulitzers for their work.
AOC went to the border and cried about “kids in cages.” (They’d been in cages since the Obama administration, but that didn’t matter.)
When women weren’t wearing the knitted pink beanies known as pussy hats, they were dressing like pilgrims, donning giant white bonnets and red capes inspired by The Handmaid’s Tale to signal that Trump would usher in a dystopian theocracy.
And though she was (wrongly!) canceled for it, comedian Kathy Griffin best summed up the cultural moment when she posed for a photoshoot holding up the president’s (fake) bloody, severed head.
Trump Derangement Syndrome subsided for a bit during the Biden years. But when I logged on to X yesterday and saw someone claiming they feared a newly elected Trump would “make rape legal,” I knew it was back.
Here’s what things are looking like the second time around:
Left-wing women are shaving their heads to protest Trump’s election. “This is the only thing we have left to control ourselves,” says one such activist in a TikTok.
People are cutting off contact with Trump-voting family members, a continuation of a trend that began in 2016. Dr. Amanda Calhoun, a Yale-affiliated psychiatrist, recently appeared on MSNBC to encourage “LGBT people” in particular to avoid visiting conservative family members during the upcoming holiday season. (Two years ago, she tweeted that her white husband had cut off many of his white friends.)
Feeling “unsafe,” some Democrats are buying guns and encouraging others to do the same.
After making much of Trump’s own election denial claims in 2020, some Democrats are speculating online that the election was stolen from Kamala. According to one conspiracy theory, voting machines were connected to Starlink—the satellite company owned by Trump backer Elon Musk. There’s no evidence for this claim, but it proves that there’s a tinfoil hat for every head. QAnon, meet BlueAnon.
After Trump won big with Latinos, some on TikTok have encouraged their followers to call our immigration enforcement agency and report the family members of any Trump-voting Latinos who might have entered the country illegally.
And then there’s the sex strike. As our own Kat Rosenfield reports, some women, enraged by Trump’s victory, have decided to adopt the tactics of 4B, a South Korean feminist movement in which women swear off dating, mating with, and marrying men.
Read Kat on the latest shot fired in America’s never-ending battle of the sexes: “Ladies, Stop Sex Striking for Kamala.”
Joe Nocera: Resistance Is Futile
In the weeks before the election, our Joe Nocera wrote a column about his self-diagnosed TDS. “You’re damn right I have Trump Derangement Syndrome,” he confessed. “I wish all Americans had it. We would be far better off.” But today he writes that the election results restored his sanity.
Why?
Partly because he says that this time he wasn’t surprised by Trump’s win. In the weeks before the election, he visited Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Green Bay, Wisconsin, and “on both trips the only other Harris supporter within miles was my son. And he’s 14.”
Plus, he says Biden shares a lot of blame for the outcome last week—and if he had the energy, he’d be suffering from Biden Derangement Syndrome instead.
Read Joe Nocera on why he’s decided resistance is futile: “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Accept Donald Trump.”
Resistance or Opposition: Which Route Should the Democrats Take?
There is no shortage of autopsies from last week’s shellacking. But Democrats should take some comfort in the fact that they have been here before.
In the latest episode of Honestly, Eli Lake says the party needs to look back to move forward.
The winning strategy, he says, was forged by a few centrist renegades who revived their party after Ronald Reagan’s 525–13 landslide over Walter Mondale in 1984. Today he talks to one of the architects of that comeback.
Click the play button below to hear Eli tell the story of how the Democratic Party remade itself—and could do it again—or catch the episode wherever you get your podcasts.
Jay Solomon: Is Qatar Really Kicking Hamas Out?
Last weekend, numerous media outlets reported that Qatar, under pressure from the Biden administration, was moving to banish members of Hamas leadership. Except, as Jay Solomon reports today, that’s not what’s actually happening. Yes, United States officials say they asked Qatar to exile members of the terror group. But Qatar appears to have ignored the request. Read Jay’s report: “Qatar Denies It Is Expelling Hamas Officials.”
Elias Wachtel: A Boy Got Lost in the Wild. How Did He Survive?
In 1939, 12-year-old Donn Fendler was hiking to the peak of Mount Katahdin in Maine with his brothers and father when he stumbled off the trail and found himself stranded in the wilderness. Nine days later, a man found the boy 35 miles away from the summit, bloodied and skeletal with the tip of his big toe missing. But alive.
How did Donn survive?
The boy told the shocked authorities that he did it by simply never giving up, and his story became a symbol of hope and resilience for a nation still recovering from the Great Depression. One year later, Donn published a book about his story, which he went on to tell schoolkids for decades until his death in 2016 at the age of 90. Now, his tale has been turned into a film, Lost on a Mountain in Maine, introducing a whole new generation to the saga.
Read Free Press Fellow Elias Wachtel’s account of Donn’s amazing survival story: “The Missing Boy Who Captured America’s Heart.”
Trump and Biden will meet at the White House today. Trump didn’t offer Biden the customary powwow four years ago, of course—he was too busy refusing to concede. And the last time the duo met was in June in the debate that ended Biden’s career. These meetings can be awkward at the best of times. But the backstory between these two sets the stage for an especially frosty encounter.
The transfer of power between the two First Ladies seems to be a little less peaceful. Melania Trump has refused to meet with First Lady Jill Biden today, citing the Biden administration’s raid on Mar-a-Lago during the federal investigation of Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents. The returning First Lady had previously called the raid, in which FBI agents scoured her wardrobe and her son’s bedroom, an “invasion of privacy.”
Donald Trump announced the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) run by “the Great Elon Musk, working in conjunction with American Patriot Vivek Ramaswamy,” on Tuesday. DOGE will be tasked with cutting wasteful spending and bureaucracy. But one thing DOGE is not: an actual government department. Instead, it will “provide advice and guidance from outside of Government.” Trump said, “It will become, potentially, ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time,” adding that its work will conclude no later than July 4, 2026. “A smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy, will be the perfect gift to America on the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence,” he said.
Pete Hegseth is Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense. Hegseth served in the army and did tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay, and has been a host on Fox News since 2014. Announcing the pick, Trump said “Peter has spent his entire life as a Warrior for the Troops, and for the Country.” Hegseth, 44, was on no one’s radar when possible Pentagon chiefs were discussed.
Trump has selected South Dakota governor Kristi Noem to serve as his next secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. If confirmed, the governor, who does not live in a border state, and is perhaps best known for shooting a dog, will head the sprawling agency that oversees U.S. Customs and Border Protection, FEMA, ICE, and the Secret Service. This may be the most random cabinet pick of the century, or at least a close second to Joe Biden’s appointing the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, to the post of transportation secretary. Other administration picks announced Tuesday include former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as U.S. ambassador to Israel and New York congressman Lee Zeldin to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Semafor reports that Trump’s team is eyeing a Senate-confirmed job for RFK Jr.
After The New York Times reported Monday evening that Donald Trump was expected to pick Florida senator Marco Rubio as his secretary of state, Tuesday came and went without any formal announcement. Those in MAGA World who think Rubio is too much of a hawk, given his tough stance on Iran and China, spent most of the day claiming the pick was not a done deal. But all signs still point to Rubio.
For more on the movers and shakers who will influence the next administration, read my piece with Eli Lake: “Meet the People of Trump World 2.0.”
On Tuesday, Germany’s political parties agreed on a date for a snap election next February. The deal comes after the collapse of Germany’s governing coalition last week, and sets the stage for a dramatic contest amid economic stagnation, social discontent, and political turmoil. The center-right CDU and CSU bloc is currently leading in the polls, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats in third place, behind the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). For more on the grim backdrop to February’s vote, we recommend Wolfgang Münchau’s recent New Statesman essay: “How Did It Go So Wrong for Germany?”
A senior police officer in Amsterdam warned of further unrest in the city days after last week’s premeditated antisemitic attacks on Israeli soccer fans. The city has been under emergency measures since the violence—and the Israelis have long since flown home—but that didn’t stop further unrest on Monday night, when dozens of people armed with sticks and firecrackers set fire to a tram as they shouted antisemitic slurs. Read David de Bruijn in The Free Press on the incident last week: “Last Night’s Pogrom in Amsterdam.”
To cope with last week’s election results, some upset Zoomers are “doom spending.” Apparently, a top beneficiary of this retail therapy is makeup company Sephora—a possible indicator of the Democratic party’s declining support among young men.
When asked by an Israeli TV reporter Wednesday if he thought he could get a hostage deal done between Israel and Hamas by the end of his term, President Biden responded: “Do you think you can get hit in the head by the camera behind you?” Is this bullying? A riddle? Nobody knows.
More and more Americans say they feel unsafe behind the wheel, according to a new Pew Research study, with majorities seeing cell phone use, speeding, and aggressive driving to blame. If you’re reading this while rushing down the freeway, stop it! You’re scaring America!
River Page is a staff writer at The Free Press. Read his recent piece on the election, “Trump’s Podcast Offensive Worked.”
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Thanks for the heads up. Hard pass on reading about Nocera’s former Trump Derangement Syndrome. Nobodody but Joe N, his psychiatrist and - maybe - his wife give shiite about his mental makeup.
This sort of works for me. It's just one less chore to do.