The Free Press
It’s Tuesday, September 24. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: On the latest episode of Honestly, Rand Paul explains why he hasn’t endorsed Trump. What the degrowth crowd gets wrong. Answer our reader survey! Plus: Crime is down, homelessness is up, and Sally Satel explains why overdose deaths are falling.
But first, two stories about the political shockwaves of a faraway war.
Two weeks from now, we’ll commemorate the anniversary of October 7. Almost one year on, that massacre and its fallout have upended millions of lives, and continue to wreak havoc in a region on fire. In Israel. In Gaza. And in Lebanon, where the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has widened further over the last twenty-four hours.
And just as the violent conflict in the Middle East shows no sign of slowing, its political and cultural ripples continue to be felt thousands of miles away here in the United States. Today, we bring you two examples of those aftershocks, especially in our institutions of higher education.
First, Joe Nocera reports on a controversy at a literary festival in upstate New York. For the last seven years, the New York State Writers Institute has held an annual book festival at the University at Albany. It’s been a place for writers to discuss big ideas. But not for Elisa Albert, a 46-year-old novelist and progressive feminist. At a festival event this past Saturday, she was supposed to moderate a panel about “Girls Coming of Age.” But the two authors slated to speak refused to appear alongside her. Why? Because Albert is a “Zionist.”
“Let’s face it,” said Albert when she spoke to Joe about the event’s cancellation. “The word Zionist is a newfangled word for Jew. Refusing to participate on a panel with a Zionist is a straight-up, bare-assed excuse for antisemitism.”
As Joe writes, Albert’s case is part of a wider tendency “escalating in elite, educated circles” to “cast anyone who is ‘Zionist’—a.k.a. Jewish—as an oppressor, and thus canceled for the common good.”
Read Joe Nocera’s full report on this troubling case: “University Cancels Panel Because Author Is a ‘Zionist’ ”
The same mindset—one that counts Jews as “oppressors”—has infected Harvard Divinity School. That’s what Robert L. Friedman, the author of our second story, discovered when, at 63, he enrolled for a master’s at the school.
“I anticipated two years to contemplate the great works of the past and engage in stimulating discussions with brilliant teachers and students,” writes Robert. “That, I accomplished. What I didn’t expect was that the school would also provide a chilling education in the contemporary antisemitism that’s on its way to overtaking higher education.”
Read how in Robert’s piece: “How Harvard Divinity Teaches Hate.”
Why Rand Paul Hasn’t Endorsed Trump
Only seven out of 49 Republican senators have refused to endorse Donald Trump. On the latest episode of Honestly, Bari Weiss sat down with one of them, Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky. Why is he holding out? He says he is frustrated with the former president because his administration contributed to the $1.9 trillion deficit. (And there’s scant sign that a second Trump term would help balance the books: According to analysis from the Penn Wharton Budget Model, Trump’s tax plans would add $5.8 trillion to the deficit.
Paul doesn’t fit neatly into any of today’s Republican tribes. He’s not MAGA, but he’s not part of the pre-Trump establishment either. His old-school libertarianism leaves him at odds with Trump’s economic populism. But Paul agrees with them that America’s priority should be national defense, not “forever wars.”
Today on Honestly, he talks to Bari about where he fits in today’s new right, when Republicans stopped caring about balancing the budget, why he wants to cut military spending (including aid to Israel), and more. Listen to their conversation by hitting the play button below, or subscribe to Honestly wherever you get your podcasts.
Israel hit southern Lebanon with air strikes Monday, killing almost 500 people, according to Lebanese authorities. The IDF said it targeted more than 1,300 locations, focusing on sites where Hezbollah was storing military infrastructure. Also Monday, Hezbollah fired more than 200 rockets into Israel. It was one of the bloodiest days since the start of the war. The Pentagon announced that “in light of increased tension in the Middle East and out of an abundance of caution,” it was sending additional personnel to the region.” Meanwhile, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has gone dark, and Israel is investigating whether he was killed in a recent air strike on Gaza.
Prosecutors will seek a charge of attempted assassination against Ryan Routh. The government presented evidence in court on Monday, including a letter addressed to “The World” in which Routh stated “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you.” He wrote that it was “up to you now to finish the job” and offered $150,000 to anyone who “can complete the job.”
Sunday brought strong polls for Kamala Harris, then Monday brought a strong set of polls for Trump. The highly respected New York Times/Siena survey showed Trump with clear leads in the Sunbelt states of North Carolina, Arizona, and Georgia. The poll puts Trump ahead by five points in Arizona, a month after it had Harris up five points last month. Even the Times’ own polling guru Nate Cohn says: “In circumstances like this, our rule of thumb is to toss the results into a polling average.” (The RealClearPolitics average has Trump up by 2.2 points in Arizona.)
Violent crime is falling, according to the latest FBI data. Murder and non-negligent manslaughter dropped by 11.6 percent between 2022 and 2023, the largest fall in decades, while violent crime as a whole fell by 3 percent.
Meanwhile, the number of homeless people in the United States is on the rise. Preliminary federal data compiled and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal suggests that the U.S. homeless population in 2024 will top the 653,000 figure for last year, the highest number since the government started collecting data in 2007. The Journal notes that “migrants bused by Texas to Chicago and Denver contributed to the latest increases when they landed in shelters there.”
Last Tuesday was National Voter Registration Day, when a record-breaking 150,000 people registered to vote, 80 percent of whom are expected to turn out in the election. The spike was driven by voters under 35, who made up 81 percent of the day’s registration. Meanwhile, Republican officials in battleground states complain they have “rarely or never” witnessed GOP canvassers, those tasked with knocking on doors to win votes for Trump. The Trump campaign and the RNC have opted to share the get-out-the-vote work this cycle with external organizations like Turning Point Action, the Charlie Kirk–run nonprofit.
Telegram has updated its privacy policy and now says it will comply with law enforcement agencies, providing them with data on users “in response to a valid legal order.” It comes after the arrest last month of the company’s CEO Pavel Durov in France, amid allegations that the app had become a hotbed of criminal activity. Read Andrey Mir on “The Real Meaning of Pavel Durov’s Arrest.”
Degrowth Is Not the Answer
According to conventional wisdom, the story of Easter Island is a cautionary tale of civilizational collapse. The Polynesian society on the Pacific island, it is said, lived beyond its environmental limits: They cut down too many trees, which destroyed the soil and eventually made their home uninhabitable. But new research suggests this parable is a fiction. Writing for The Free Press, the economist James Pethokoukis explains why that’s a blow to the “degrowth” movement, whose pernicious and mistaken ideas stand in the way of human flourishing.
Read James Pethokoukis on what really happened on Easter Island, and why “Degrowth Is Not the Answer.”
Tell Us How You Really Feel!
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Why Are Overdose Deaths Falling? Sally Satel Has Some Ideas
Last week brought the welcome news that—after years of increases—the number of drug overdose deaths is finally going down. According to the CDC, the figure fell by 10 percent between April 2023 and April 2024. The drop caught policymakers and experts by surprise. The obvious and important question is: Why the fall? For an answer, we spoke to psychiatrist and Free Press contributor Sally Satel, who works on the front lines of the drug crisis at a methadone clinic in Washington, D.C. She explained that several factors likely played a role. They include:
The enhanced distribution and use of naloxone, the opioid overdose “antidote”: “My provisional opinion is that this has been the most influential factor.”
The fact that “people who take fentanyl tend to develop greater tolerance, or physical adaptation, over time” meaning they are less likely to overdose. “I see many such patients in my work at the methadone clinic.”
“At the margins,” test strips that allow opioid users to test their sample for fentanyl “may have contributed,” says Sally.
Sally speculates that efforts to slow the flow of fentanyl may have made some difference, and also suggests that the fentanyl crisis, like other drug epidemics before it, could be “burning out”: “In the instance of the crack scourge in the 1980s and early 1990s, people became so repulsed by the drug’s effect on older relatives and neighbors that they avoided it. . . ‘crackhead’ became a potent slur.”
But, Sally says, big questions remain unanswered. One of them: Why some states, like Kentucky and North Carolina, saw especially steep declines. And, perhaps most importantly: Will this trend continue? To answer that, researchers need to dig deeper into the causes of this latest, unexpected good news.
Madame Proto Called. You Answered.
Yesterday we shared a link to a GoFundMe page for Anne Protopappas, who, as we reported last week, was fired from Spence, the Manhattan private school, after answering a student’s question about France’s hijab ban. In a matter of hours, Free Press readers helped hit the initial goal of $25,000. The money will go toward helping “Madame Proto” make ends meet while she takes legal action against the school for wrongful dismissal. (The page is still open for donations.)
Oliver Wiseman is a writer and editor for The Free Press. Follow him on X @ollywiseman.
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Thanks for Rand Paul interview. He is one of the senators that I respect. He immediately called out Rachel Levine for being evasive during a senate hearing.
I too am disappointed in the appearance of left leaning articles by TFF. Crime rates are not falling. That has been well refuted. I am most disappointed that you chose to include the entire content of Ruth's letter. The rhetoric, falsehoods and lies by the media is leading to the worst kind of crime against one candidate. Who are we if we don't respect everyone 's right to life and to have their own opinion. Publishing the bounty is another clear instance that you don't care about his right to life. Shame on you all.