‘How Democrats Lost Men Like Me.’ Plus. . .

It’s Wednesday, June 4. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: The future of war is here; why “report first, verify later” is a gift to Hamas; Bari Weiss and Rod Dreher in conversation on the radical right; and more.

But first: River Page and Peter Savodnik on how Democrats lost young men—and a new generation of candidates trying to depose their party’s old guard.

A recent New York Times article revealed that the Democratic Party is spending $20 million to anthropologically study the young men who have abandoned them in droves. Like Margaret Mead observing the grass-skirted natives in Samoa, notebook in hand, Dems plan to study the “syntax, language, and content that gains attention and virality” in online male spaces, according to the plans.

They should pay me instead. I am a young man (in good lighting, anyway), and one the Democrats once had and lost.

In my latest essay for The Free Press, I argue that the party should learn from the one Democrat capable of capturing a male audience: Bernie Sanders. With his party in the midst of an identity crisis, Bernie has been packing arenas on his “Fighting the Oligarchy” tour and charming the hosts of bro-ish podcasts like Flagrant with Andrew Schulz. If Democrats want to win back young men, they have to adopt the Bernie method: Acknowledge that something is deeply wrong with the country, provide a plan to fix it and, most importantly, name an enemy.

Thankfully, some Democrats seem to get it. Or at least that’s what I’ve gathered from my colleague Peter Savodnik’s latest reporting. In his Free Press story today, he profiles the young Democrats taking on the party’s gerontocracy in the coming primaries.

“These new Democrats say they are done with just railing against Donald Trump,” Peter writes. They “are more focused on addressing the problems that propelled Trump to power in the first place—the problems that the people they’re challenging have had years to do something about but, to their mind, have not.”

—River Page

And tune in at 3 p.m. ET today for our next livestream: A conversation between Free Press columnist Matthew Continetti and senior editor Olly Wiseman on the past, present, and future of American conservatism, from William F. Buckley to Donald Trump. Join us here.

• Elon Musk, newly departed from his D.C. efforts to reduce governmental waste, called the Republicans’ tax-and-spending-cut bill a “disgusting abomination.” The Tesla CEO referred to the “big, beautiful bill” as the “massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill,” adding: “Shame on those who voted for it: You know you did wrong.”

• The wife and five children of the Colorado terrorist attack suspect were arrested yesterday and taken into custody by ICE and Homeland Security. The suspect—an Egyptian national who shouted “Free Palestine” as he hurled Molotov cocktails at demonstrators—and his family now face deportation. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said her agency is “investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack.”

• The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has warned that the global economy is set to grow at its slowest rate since the pandemic amid President Trump’s trade war. The organization has lashed its forecasts for 2025 and 2026 to 2.9 percent. The U.S. is projected to be hit particularly hard, with a predicted growth rate this year of 1.6 percent, down from 2.8 percent last year.

• A set of bills that would have made developing renewable energy infrastructure harder and more expensive failed in the Texas state legislature on Monday. An alliance of clean energy groups, corporations, and fossil fuel companies had lobbied against the legislation—a demonstration of the strength of an “all of the above” energy policy in Texas. Approximately a third of the state’s energy comes from renewable sources.

• Citigroup committed itself to political neutrality in a statement published Tuesday. As the issue of “debanking” becomes more prominent, the company is explicitly prohibiting discrimination on the basis of “political affiliation.” The financial firm also lifted its restriction on the sale of firearms by its business clients. Read Rupa Subramanya’s groundbreaking Free Press report on “debanking.”

• Lee Jae-myung was inaugurated as South Korea’s new president today after winning a snap election. The liberal opposition leader took office after the previous president, Yoon Suk Yeol, was impeached and removed after a political saga involving his improper declaration of martial law.

• Climate activist Greta Thunberg set sail for Gaza as part of a mission aimed at “breaking Israel’s siege,” according to organizers of the trip. “No matter how dangerous this mission is, it’s not even near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of the livestreamed genocide,” Thunberg said.

• The Kennedy Center saw a drop of 36 percent in subscription revenue for the upcoming season. The dip comes after Trump appointed allies to the board of trustees, made himself chairman, and replaced its president with Ric Grenell, who served as ambassador to Germany during Trump’s first term. A staffer who shared the data said: “We feel that it is necessary to show that mismanagement by the new leadership is becoming a real problem for the health of the organization.”

• Two Chinese citizens were charged with conspiracy and smuggling a “dangerous biological pathogen” into the U.S. A DOJ attorney said that two Chinese men smuggled a “ ‘potential agroterrorism weapon’ into the heartland of America, where they apparently intended to use a University of Michigan laboratory to further their scheme.”