It’s Tuesday, October 21. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: How Substack’s top writer amassed 2.7 million subscribers with revisionist history. A look inside the progressive nonprofits that fear Trump’s wrath. And how the Muslim Brotherhood built a propaganda machine for the digital age.
But first: What’s wrong with the right?
Life moves pretty fast, especially on the political right. Lately, it feels like the American right is on a supersonic flight to somewhere pretty strange.
Once-taboo topics are being embraced by some of the most influential figures in MAGA. Tucker Carlson wants to know what really happened on 9/11. If you think this is fringe, or confined to the online sewers, consider that Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, Paul Ingrassia, wrote in a GOP group chat that MLK Jr. Day should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell” and said he has “a Nazi streak,” according to messages leaked to Politico yesterday. Meanwhile, in other GOP group chats, young Republicans are talking about their love of Hitler. (Read River Page on that worrying development here.) In short: It’s getting weird out there.
Perhaps the clearest sign of how weird is the rising profile of Nick Fuentes. A racist troll who came to prominence in the strange online far right during Trump’s first term, Fuentes was kept out of the mainstream right for years. But that is changing of late. The stigma has melted away, and Fuentes is, in the words of Red Scare’s Dasha Nekrasova, on a “generational run”—all while sticking to his shocking rhetoric.
How did this happen? And what does it say about the state of the right today? Those are the questions at the heart of Eli Lake’s report for The Free Press today on how Nick Fuentes went mainstream.
Just pointing out this kind of weirdness—as we have done time and again at The Free Press—can get you in a whole lot of trouble.
That’s what Seth Dillon, the CEO of satirical news site The Babylon Bee, has learned since he raised the alarm about the bad ideas metastasizing on the right in recent weeks. Seth is a rock-ribbed conservative in the business of ridiculing dumb thinking wherever he and his colleagues find it. But for pointing out the obvious—that there are bad ideas on the right—Seth has faced a “mob” accusing him of “treachery and betrayal.”
In his essay for The Free Press today, Seth implores fellow conservatives to avoid tribalism and call out foolish and dangerous thinking wherever they find it. Read his piece on why “no enemies to the right” isn’t a strategy for defeating the left. It’s suicide.
—Oliver Wiseman
Heather Cox Richardson may not be a household name, but she is one of the most influential voices in American media. To her 2.7 million subscribers, Richardson is the last responsible adult in the room, one devoted to the hard facts of history. Yet the history in her telling is never neutral. It is a “morality tale in which Republicans play the villains; Democrats, the weary defenders of reason.” Read Blake Dodge and Katherine Dee on how Substack’s top writer rewrote history—and made a name for herself in the process.
Liberal nonprofits are in panic mode in the wake of Trump’s pledge to go after those that he said have done “tremendous damage to our country.” One British charity has halted millions of dollars in grants to U.S. organizations; others are pooling legal resources in case they are labeled terrorist organizations. Gabe Kaminsky reports on the fear gripping the progressive nonprofit sector.
The government shutdown continues. Democrats are demanding the GOP extend enhanced subsidies for Obamacare—a vestige of Covid-era economic protections—while Republicans are using it as a pretext to take a sledgehammer to the federal workforce. “The outline of a compromise is already evident, and has been since the beginning of this drama,” writes Charles Lane. Read his column on why the government shut down and how Congress might start it back up again.
The Trump administration appears poised to designate several branches of the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organizations. But this move would fail to address the root of the problem, argues Middle East expert Mariam Wahba—the group’s “seductive and deadly message,” which it amplifies through channels from outlets like Al Jazeera and to social media influencers. Read her piece on how the Muslim Brotherhood built a propaganda machine for the digital age—and how the U.S. can fight back before it’s too late.
LIVE in New York City: Jonathan Haidt and Bari Weiss
We are nearly sold out for Reclaiming Childhood in an Online World, a live conversation with Jonathan Haidt and Bari Weiss on October 22 in New York City about how we raise kids in 2025—and how we might be getting it all backward. Get your tickets today.
Drink Yourself Sober with Katie Herzog
What if you could shut off alcohol cravings—for good? On this episode of Honestly, Blocked and Reported co-host Katie Herzog opens up to Bari about her decades-long addiction, which inspired Katie’s new book, Drink Yourself Sober. Come for wild stories and a spirited debate about whether or not Alcoholics Anonymous actually works—and stay for a peek into the science-based method that extinguished Herzog’s cravings and left her three years alcohol-free.
An Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage wiped out many big-name websites, including Duolingo, Roblox, and Coinbase early Monday morning. In a statement, the company claimed that the issue has since been “fully mitigated” but that some “requests may be throttled while we work toward full resolution.” AWS is the world’s largest cloud computing provider.
New data show that peanut allergies in children have fallen dramatically in the past decade. The drastic shift comes after a 2015 change in allergy guidelines, which advised introducing infants to the allergen at as early as 4 months old.
Trump can continue his deployment of the National Guard to quell violent anti-ICE protests in Portland, Oregon, an appeals court ruled yesterday. On Sunday, President Trump threatened to send the National Guard into San Francisco in his latest effort to clean up crime in bright-blue cities. “San Francisco was truly one of the great cities of the world, and then 15 years ago it went wrong, it went woke,” Trump told Fox News over the weekend. “But we’re gonna go to San Francisco and we’re gonna make it great.”
As the government shutdown drags on, multiple states have warned that November’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits—also known as food stamps—could be in jeopardy. As of Monday, there are still no signs of lawmakers signing a deal.
Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, called for a hearing to challenge the legality of U.S. military strikes on boats in the Caribbean. “President Trump and his administration continue to fail to answer pressing questions regarding the president’s orders to carry out lethal U.S. military strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea,” Rep. Smith said in a statement. “They have failed to demonstrate the legality of these strikes, provide transparency on the process used, or even a list of cartels that have been designated as terrorist organizations.”
The United States and Australia signed an agreement to fortify their supply of critical minerals on Monday. The deal includes $8.5 billion worth of shared projects, and will help the nations combat China’s dominance in the global rare earths supply chain.
We have a packed season of conversations, debates, and live events. Here’s what’s coming up:
Reclaiming Childhood in an Online World with Jonathan Haidt and Bari Weiss
New York, NY • October 22, 7 p.m. • 🎟️ Tickets on sale hereWould America Be Safer Without the Second Amendment? Featuring Alan Dershowitz, Dana Loesch, and Bari Weiss
Chicago • November 5, 7 p.m. • 🎟️ Tickets on sale here
When I first found the Free Press the advertisement claimed to tell the truth and cover both the Left and the Right. Well, there is so little coverage on the craziness of the Left and so much biased coverage of the Right that I have cancelled my subscription. And, I'm very much a moderate. A little bit liberal on social issues and a little bit conservative on fiscal issues.
The Left has become so radical that they choose the 20% side of 80/20 issues and even the 10% side of some 90/10 issues. They Free Press never talks about that. Listen to some Bill Maher, a liberal, slamming the Left and the idiotic policies they push. He gets it. The Free Press has not and apparently never will.
Thanks for some good articles like Ancient Wisdom, Things to Remember, etc. But there is too much writing like this article to justify a subscription just so I can comment.
Sheesh. This a complete waste of zeros and ones.