Trump Should Be Running Away with the Election. Why Isn’t He? Plus. . .

It’s Wednesday, September 25. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Emily Oster asks, “Have we forgotten how to discipline our kids?” Rupa Subramanya and Eli Lake debate: Should we defund the UN? Kat Rosenfield wonders: Is Jacob Elordi too hot to play Heathcliff? All that and much more coming up. But first: why the presidential election is a lot closer than it should be. 

Trump Is Wasting Time on Stupid Stuff and Bad Stuff  

It’s been ten long weeks since Donald Trump was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. When the Republican presidential candidate rose from the stage, bloodied, fist raised, yelling “Fight” to his supporters, he seemed invincible. 

Not only had he dodged death, he looked set for victory come November. “We’ve all resigned ourselves to a second Trump presidency,” one senior House Democrat told Axios just hours after the assassination attempt. 

A lot has changed since then—most importantly Trump’s opponent—and rather than holding an unassailable lead, he is in the middle of a dogfight for the White House. What happened? Part of the story is of a Democratic Party pulling itself together, ditching its senescent candidate, and falling into line behind Kamala Harris. But the other part concerns Donald Trump himself, and the campaign he has chosen to run. 

As the candidates now sprint toward Election Day, the Trump campaign has become a chaotic operation that could bungle the election that was his to lose. 

Consider the latest Gallup data. Among the ten key indicators ahead of the 2024 presidential election, nine of them—including voters’ views on the economy—show Trump and the Republicans should have the upper hand. 

And yet the presidential race is a toss-up. Is this because Harris, who everyone thought was a major liability until five minutes ago, is a brilliant campaigner? Nope. Is it because her campaign is run by genius political strategists? Likely not, given they’re the same people who formerly ran Biden’s reelection bid. Is it because she is getting a very easy ride from the media? Okay, that may be part of it. With only a handful of interviews and some help from a sympathetic press corps, Harris has shed her image as the most unpopular vice president in recent history and rebranded as a viable candidate.

But more to the point, Trump has allowed her to rebrand, offering no consistent critique of the country’s eminently critique-able vice president. He flopped so badly in his first debate with her he is now running scared from a rematch. 

Instead of working hard to convince voters Harris is unfit for the top job, the Trump campaign has wasted too much time on two things: stupid stuff and bad stuff. 

First, the stupid. On Saturday, Trump posted a video on Truth Social, hawking silver “Trump Coins.” (This “true symbol of American greatness” can be yours for just $100.) Last week he paid a visit to a bar in Greenwich Village, where he bought a burger with cryptocurrency (all part of a Trumpworld crypto push). None of this screams “I am laser-focused on delivering victory in November.” 

Second, the bad. Hanging out with nutso racist troll Laura Loomer. Preemptively blaming the Jews if he loses in November. Indulging an unproven, sinister fantasy about pet-eating Haitian migrants in Ohio. Greenlighting J.D. Vance’s onstage appearance with Tucker Carlson last Saturday—just weeks after Carlson interviewed a Nazi apologist who he called the “best and most honest popular historian working in the United States today.” 

All of this—the stupid and the bad—hurts Trump’s reelection chances. (Though at least the Trump campaign was smart enough to snub Mark Robinson from a recent North Carolina rally after reports revealed the gubernatorial candidate calls himself a “black Nazi” on porn websites.) 

All of this is to say: We are a long way from Butler, Pennsylvania. In the aftermath of the Trump assassination attempt, people around the former president described him as a changed man. Trump said he had ripped up his planned speech for the RNC in place of a new address emphasizing unity. He had the chance to do more than that: to rise above partisanship and lawfare and political violence and occupy the center ground of American politics with a pitch focused on the economy and immigration, all while hammering Harris for her radical past positions and the fact she was likely part of the Biden cover-up, pretending he was competent enough to run for reelection. 

That’s a compelling pitch for the normie voters who decide elections. It’s one Trump was well-positioned to make. But he has so far proven himself either unwilling or unable to do so. And now here he is: stuck in a coin-flip race he should be winning by a mile. 

Listen Now to Episode Two of Raising Parents with Emily Oster

Last week, we launched Raising Parents with Emily Oster, our new eight-part podcast series on parenting hosted by the economist, best-selling author, and heroine of every millennial parent in your life. The series tackles some of the most challenging, controversial, and important questions about how to parent. (If you missed Episode One, catch up here.) This week, in Episode Two, join Emily as she considers the age-old matter of discipline. Have we forgotten how to do it? And might “gentle parenting” be an overcorrection? Click the button below to listen. And don’t forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. 

Is It Time to Defund the UN? 

The good, the bad, and the downright evil are in Manhattan this week for the UN General Assembly. And they’ve arrived at a time of immense chaos and conflict, with devastating hot wars spreading across the globe—from Sudan to Ukraine to Gaza. An assorted rogues’ gallery of dictators, human rights abusers, and corrupt heads of state are parading around the city with their entourage of hangers-on, enjoying the New York high life while using the United Nations General Assembly as a platform to grandstand to fawning audiences back home. 

The U.S. is by far the largest funder of the United Nations, contributing 22 percent of its budget. In 2022, that came to $18 billion. Most American taxpayers have no idea how their money is being spent—or misspent.

All this raises the question: Is it time to cancel the check and defund the UN? In the latest installment of Free Press Fight Club, Rupa Subramanya says absolutely, while Eli Lake says not so fast—our national security depends on the 79-year-old organization. Read both sides of the argument here, and let us know which side you’re on in the comments. 

An aerial view of pancake ice and melt in Greenland. (Photo by KEREM YUCEL/AFP via Getty Images)

• “Some things are more important than staying in power,” President Biden said in his final speech at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. The president also said that Putin failed in Ukraine “at his core aim,” that “now is the time” for a cease-fire in the Middle East, and not a day goes by that he doesn’t consider the lives lost in the Afghanistan withdrawal. Not exactly a glittering list of foreign policy accomplishments for the outgoing president. 
  

• As the war against Hezbollah kicks into a higher gear, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has recovered his standing in the opinion polls. After the catastrophe of October 7 happened on his watch, just a quarter of Israelis supported him as prime minister and support for his party, Likud, took a tumble. But now each is leading in the polls once again.
  

• A federal court in Argentina issued an arrest warrant for Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his interior minister Diosdado Cabello for alleged crimes against humanity, citing their treatment of dissidents. Last week, the Maduro regime arrested four Americans, including a former U.S. Navy SEAL, who Cabello claims were engaged in a U.S.-led plot to “assassinate President Nicolás Maduro.” The U.S. State Department says the claim is “categorically false.” 
  

• One of China’s top economists has vanished after criticizing President Xi’s handling of his faltering economy. In a private group chat, Zhu Hengpeng knocked the country’s sluggish economic performance as well as Xi’s age. (He’s 71.) Zhu was subsequently investigated and detained—and no one has heard from him since.
  

• On Monday, Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) wrote a letter to the U.S. secretary of state, asking him to explain why Robert Malley, a former U.S. special envoy to Iran, was allowed continued access to classified materials after his security clearance was suspended. Last year, an FBI investigation found that Malley may have had classified information on his personal email account that was possibly compromised by a foreign actor. Banks alleges that the administration “tried to keep Malley’s suspension quiet and allow him to continue his work as if nothing had changed, likely in violation of the law.”
  

• Scientists trying to prevent Arctic ice from melting have had some initial success pumping seawater over its surface (which then freezes and helps thicken the ice), according to a UK start-up, Real Ice. The oldest and thickest parts of the ice have shrunk by 95 percent in the last 30 years.
  

• Rent controls don’t work. That’s what economic theory says. It’s also borne out by what is happening in Argentina. The country’s new president, Javier Milei, overhauled some of the world’s strictest rent control laws when he took office, and the results speak for themselves: The Wall Street Journal reports that since last October, renters have seen a 40 percent decline in the real price of rental properties when adjusted for inflation, while monthly price increases have reached their lowest rate since 2021. 
  

• VICE magazine is relaunching in print. The idea is to rediscover the publication’s DNA as “a loose community of people with a shared love of wild stories, arguments, and stupid jokes.” If you read former staffer Michael Moynihan’s Free Press account of what killed VICE, you’ll know it will take more than just a print magazine to solve their problems.
  

• Readers, especially fans of TGIF, will know Julia the Intern as Nellie’s put-upon minion. But we’re not sure how long that will last. Julia is back at Stanford for her senior year and has just been made editor-in-chief of The Stanford Review, which sounds rather fancy. Read her inaugural editor’s note, titled “The Inmates Have Taken Over the Asylum.” Indeed. (All kidding aside, we’re proud of you, Julia!)

An “Innocent” Man Executed

At around 6 p.m. CT yesterday, Marcellus Williams was executed by lethal injection in Missouri, even though the state’s top prosecutor says he was innocent. Williams was convicted of first-degree murder in 2001 for killing a former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter. But a lack of DNA evidence and claims about the trustworthiness of the witnesses who testified against Williams led the Missouri prosecutor to file a motion to vacate his conviction in January. Williams was put to death after the Missouri Supreme Court, the state’s governor, and, just yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene. 

While the U.S. Supreme Court was still considering the request for a stay of execution, Peter Savodnik wrote about this complicated case, which has led conservatives in a deep red state to oppose the death penalty. Read his full analysis here, in which he compares Williams’ case to that of Oklahoma’s Richard Glossip, who Rupa Subramanya profiled for us earlier this year. 

Too Hot to Be Heathcliff? 

Jacob Elordi. (Photo by Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images)

A blockbuster new movie version of Wuthering Heights is in the works, and this week its A-list cast was announced. Margot Robbie will play Cathy and Jacob Elordi will star as her rugged lover Heathcliff. You’d have thought fans of the novel—and a century and a half after it was published, Emily Brontë’s masterpiece still inspires a devoted following—would be thrilled about the prospect of two huge stars playing their favorite characters. Apparently not. “Did anyone actually read the book before deciding this?” inquired one critic. 

What the heck is going on? Here’s Free Press culture commentator Kat Rosenfield to the rescue, helping explain the controversy:

There’s perhaps a valid point to be made that Jacob Elordi, who prior to this is probably best known for playing Barry Keoghan’s posh crush in the homo-auto-erotic thriller Saltburn, is a bit too pretty to play Brontë’s brooding, snarling antihero. But let’s be honest: The casting backlash isn’t really about Elordi. It’s about the Wuthering Heights fandom, whose parasocial fixation on Heathcliff makes last decade’s vampire-crazed Twilight obsessives look positively demure.

For this I blame the American public school system, where most people are assigned to read Wuthering Heights in freshman year English class, making Heathcliff the number one formative literary crush for generation upon generation of angsty, horny teenage girls. He is the OG dirtbag boyfriend, the one you can’t stop thinking about even though he’s cruel and coarse and always vaguely damp from stomping around the moors in a fit of pique.

No flesh and blood man, no matter how much dirt you rub on him, can ever live up to the Heathcliff of our fantasies. . . although, in the end, I think most fans will grudgingly allow Jacob Elordi to try.

Oliver Wiseman is a writer and editor for The Free Press. Follow him on X @ollywiseman. 

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