The Free Press

Right-wing parties are ascending across Europe, with some already playing a role in governing the continent’s most powerful countries, and others poised to do so soon. It would be a grave mistake to condemn these movements as betokening the return of fascism. It would also be a mistake to cheer them on.

It’s worthwhile to examine the rise of these parties in thorough detail. Recent victories by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in two recent provincial elections have focused attention on the right-wing party and its designs for national power. Last month, the AfD won 44 percent of the vote in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, and captured 38 percent in coastal Mecklenburg-Vorpommern two weeks later. Both states were part of the communist former East Germany.

While it was once easy to write off the AfD as the political manifestation of the anger and frustration that many in the heavily deindustrialized region continue to feel over 35 years since reunification, current polls placing the AfD ahead in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, indicate that the party can no longer be dismissed as a mere eastern phenomenon. Nationwide, the AfD stands at 28 percent, 8 points ahead of its closest rival, the Christian Democratic Union of Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Germany’s main governing party since the republic was refounded in 1949.

The success of the AfD as a party that political scientists classify as “far right” is being mirrored across the continent. In the United Kingdom, Nigel Farage’s Reform, an outgrowth of the United Kingdom Independence Party that helped push the country to leave the European Union, led national opinion polls for 15 months until the ruling Labour Party replaced its unpopular prime minister this past July.

Effective altruism is the phrase of the last few weeks. The last issue of The Economist called it “this century’s biggest idea.” I concur, at least for the Western world. That’s especially true because many billions of dollars are now backing it up. Coefficient Giving is only the largest of many young philanthropic groups animated by effective altruism, and this year it’s set to spend more than $2 billion of its $40 billion fund on the movement’s favorite causes, from AI safety research to uncaging farm-raised chickens. That level of spending will likely exceed the Ford, Rockefeller, and Walton foundations combined.

Effective altruism was first given a name in 2011 as it spread among a handful of academics, but it’s exploding in influence now because it’s drawn so many adherents within the suddenly dominant realm of artificial intelligence. After fears about AI safety exploded into the public last month, much of the press raced to expose the effective altruists and fellow travelers who work at the major AI labs, portraying them as a Bay Area sex cult determined to control our lives. And even when one considers effective altruism fairly, its core ideas differ from those of Christianity and from the commonsense morality of most Americans, whether religious or secular. So when you explain effective altruism, a lot of people end up hating it.

To understand effective altruism, we need to draw a distinction between its intellectual and sociological manifestations. Intellectually, think of it as a branch of utilitarianism. It suggests we should judge social policies by how much net utility they create, or alternatively, how much net suffering they avoid. This resembles the pleasure-pain calculus of the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham, including in its emphasis on the welfare of animals alongside humans. Vegetarianism and veganism are common in effective altruist circles.

Warnings about an approaching war with Russia have swept through Europe during recent weeks, propagated by presidents, opposition figures, and the news media alike. The tone has been strident, almost panicked, conveying a sense of utmost urgency.

Let’s start with Great Britain.

Sir Richard Knighton, chief of the defense staff, proclaimed this to be “the most dangerous period that I have known,” adding: “The war in Ukraine shows Putin’s willingness to target neighboring states . . . [which] threatens the whole of NATO, including the UK.”

Armed Forces Minister Al Carns, mixing his metaphors, asserted that “the shadow of war is knocking on Europe’s door.”

Sir Richard Shirreff, former deputy supreme allied commander of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), warned that without stronger European deterrence, “your sons and grandchildren and daughters are going to be facing a war with Russia. And a lot of them are not going to come home from it.” In a prophetic vision, Shirreff foresaw “white Commonwealth war graves . . .covering large amounts of Eastern Europe.”

Tory gadfly Jacob Rees-Mogg urged Britons to “do their duty” in case of war, even if some of them “have to die.” “If people aren’t willing to do their duty,” he explained, “then the country will be taken over by another country.”

BBC joined the war-talk frenzy with this astonishing headline: “War may be coming. Are we psychologically ready?”

On September 18, Jon Lovett, the former Barack Obama speechwriter and host of the political comedy podcast Lovett or Leave It, welcomed left-wing personality Hasan Piker to his show, calling Piker “the star of this year’s midterm elections” and “America’s sweetheart.”

Then, in a mock-serious tone, Lovett, a co-founder of Crooked Media, which produces the podcast, declared: “I do want to get this out of the way: I denounce you.”

That elicited a chuckle from Piker, who replied: “I denounce myself as well.”

The hard-to-miss point was: All the controversy around Piker—the streamer has declared that “America deserved 9/11,” that accusations of Hamas committing sexual violence on October 7, 2023, are “rape fantasies,” that he would pick Hamas over Israel “every single time,” that the collapse of the Soviet Union “was one of the greatest catastrophes of the 20th century,” that “pound for pound” the U.S. is worse than Al Qaeda—was overblown.

Meaning it’s permissible—desirable—for Democrats to make room for Piker in their “big tent.”

“My view is: I am part of a pro-democracy coalition in the fight against fascism,” Lovett said, addressing Piker, “and it includes everyone from former Republicans like Nicolle Wallace and Tim Miller and Sarah Longwell, it includes establishment politicians, it includes Neera Tanden, it includes Shannon Watts, it includes AOC and Bernie, and it includes voices on the left like you.”

When I asked Watts, an anti-gun violence activist, how she feels about being lumped together with a streamer best known for his misogyny and antisemitism, she said: “What concerns me is the suggestion that, because the stakes are so high, we must overlook rhetoric or behavior we would otherwise reject.”

The deeper problem, Ravi Gupta, a Democratic podcaster, told me, is that Lovett and the rest of the Crooked team portrays themselves as a bunch of friends still in their post-adolescence just sitting around talking about politics, when, in fact, they are making huge decisions with long-term implications for the Democratic Party—like who belongs in the “pro-democracy coalition,” which candidates they’re leaning toward, which candidates they’re leaning against, what’s in, what’s out.

It’s Monday, October 5. 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 presidential hopeful fanning the flames in France. Sally Satel on why psychology’s top accreditor is in the federal crosshairs. Josh Code reports on Gen Z’s new addiction. And much more.

But first: The missed warnings about October 7.

In 22 days, Israelis will vote in the first national elections since the worst attack in the country’s history. At stake is the political future of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, and the direction of the Jewish state at a fraught moment in the Middle East.

This week marks the third anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 rampage through Israel, and the attack, as well as the war that followed, are major issues on the campaign trail. For Netanyahu, the question that looms over his reelection bid is the same question that has dogged him ever since that dark day three years ago: How could he let this happen?

Making matters more awkward for Netanyahu is the handful of people who raised the alarm ahead of the Hamas attack. Today, Jay Solomon talks to one of them: Yigal Carmon, 80-year-old former counterintelligence analyst. He runs an organization called MEMRI, which monitors Arabic- and Persian-language media in the region. On August 31, 2023, he published an article on his website titled “Signs of Possible War in September–October.” War would soon arrive, of course. Carmon is out with a new report, his most comprehensive look yet at the signs of a coming attack and how they were missed. He shared the details exclusively with The Free Press.

Why did so few people heed warnings like Carmon’s? Elliot Kaufman, author of the new book In the War Room, sits down with Coleman Hughes in the latest episode of Conversations with Coleman and argues that Israel’s failure wasn’t due to a lack of red flags; it came from an inability to believe Hamas would act on them. Don’t miss their conversation on what happened inside Israel’s war room once the fighting began.

—Oliver Wiseman

Gen Z is obsessed with wellness and sobriety. We have smart devices measuring our blood pressure and telling us how well we slept, apps to track our calories, and injections to make sure we don’t consume too many of those calories in the first place. We’re also drinking alcohol at lower rates than our parents did when they were our age.

Enter Feel Free, a drink in a tiny blue bottle billed as an alcohol-alternative “social tonic.” A casual buzz without the hangover. The two-ounce bottle contains kratom, a natural substance unregulated by the Food and Drug Administration that can improve focus and produce an opioid-like high when consumed in higher doses.

The drink looks innocent. For some users, though, it ended up being addictive, and it can be so hard to stop that withdrawal is “absolutely comparable” to heroin, according to one person who used both. Many of the people I spoke to said they had never touched drugs before and got hooked by accident while seeking an alternative to alcohol, a study aid, or a way to get over their social anxiety.

Arizona attorney general Kris Mayes called Feel Free “gas station heroin.” Last month, she sued its manufacturer, Botanic Tonics, for allegedly violating a consumer fraud law.

I wanted to know: What the heck is Feel Free? And more importantly, how is it still being sold in over 30,000 stores across the country? Read my report to find out.

—Josh Code

• The United States abruptly pulled all 12 of its B-1 bombers from an air base in southern England over the weekend after officials received new warnings of an Iran-backed plot to attack the base. The unusually fast exit came a week after British police arrested five men on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act after their vans were spotted heading toward the base, an incident British prime minister Andy Burnham has linked to Iran, which denies involvement.

• Yemen’s Saudi-supported government launched an all-out military offensive against the Iran-backed Houthis yesterday, aiming to retake territory the group has held for over a decade. With more than 200 U.S. analysts reportedly helping the Saudis select targets, the campaign threatens to pull the U.S. deeper into the regional war with Iran.

• In a rare interview, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito told CBS News’ Jan Crawford that he considered retiring earlier this year but decided he thinks he can “still make a contribution.” He also discussed his shock at the Dobbs leak, the damage done by attacks on the court, and more.

• The Coast Guard found flight debris off Nantucket, Massachusetts, from a Canadian air ambulance that disappeared early Saturday with six people aboard while flying from Bermuda to Boston. Before losing contact, the pilot declared an emergency and reported electrical trouble.

• Christa Pike remains unconscious and on a ventilator after Tennessee’s two failed attempts to execute her last week, and it may be days before doctors know if she will recover, her lawyer said Sunday. The state’s prison chief, Frank Strada, announced Saturday he will step down as an independent review of the botched execution begins. (For more on Christa Pike’s attempted execution, read Noah Bernstein’s Q&A with a former executioner.)

• German chancellor Friedrich Merz announced 1 billion euros in new military aid for Ukraine during a trip to Kyiv on Sunday, as Russian drones hit the capital. German companies also struck about 6.6 billion euros in defense deals with Ukraine during the trip.

• The White House is tracking reports from Russia about a possible plague outbreak after a 28-year-old researcher at a Siberian lab died. Local officials said she broke a test tube holding the pneumonic plague bacterium in late September, though Russia’s health agency has not confirmed the plague and said that 200 people being monitored have tested negative.

• Israeli investigators said they believe the FlyDubai co-pilot accused of stabbing the captain and trying to crash a flight to Tel Aviv last week likely acted alone. Passengers helped subdue the co-pilot before off-duty pilots landed the plane safely in Saudi Arabia. (For more on the thwarted terror attack, read our exclusive interview with Yaniv Hayoun, one of the passengers who stormed the cockpit.)

Three years ago this week, Hamas launched an invasion that Israel’s own intelligence services considered essentially impossible. Elliot Kaufman’s new book, In the War Room, explains why that confidence was misplaced, and just how close Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar came to succeeding.

Kaufman spent the better part of the last two years reporting on this war …

For the past few days, France has been burning.

Last week, high school students in Paris took to the streets to protest what they described as excessively long school hours, overheated classrooms, frequent staff absences, and crumbling buildings. Since then, the movement has spread across the country. It is pandemonium: Students are piling trash bins and other objects across school entrances to prevent their classmates from entering; they are setting piles of garbage on fire in the streets; they are wrapping their faces with masks and balaclavas; they are violently clashing with police.

In Marseille on Thursday, firefighters responding to burning trash outside Saint-Exupéry high school came under attack. One firefighter was injured, and an emergency response vehicle was torched. In Paris, a police lieutenant was chased, tripped, and kicked on the ground by several attackers. Footage carried by the news outlet Actu17 includes a cry of “Kill her!” Its report did not establish whether the attackers were students, but so far, more than 100 schools have been damaged, and 65 staff members and 170 students have been injured.

And there is no end in sight. On Sunday, education minister Édouard Geffray said that between 400 and 500 schools will be closed on Monday as security conditions “have not been fulfilled.” Student unions have called for a nationwide day of protests on Tuesday.

On August 31, 2023, Yigal Carmon, a counterterrorism adviser to Israeli prime ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin more than a generation ago, published a warning on the website of his think tank, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “Signs of Possible War in September–October,” said the headline of the article, written from Jerusalem in Carmon’s succinct, often brusque style.

Carmon, MEMRI’s 80-year-old founder, didn’t predict specifically that Hamas would instigate the war, or that it would begin on Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip. But he stressed that there were increased rumblings and threats of a major operation coming from the militant chiefs in the Middle East that he and MEMRI constantly monitor through Arabic- and Persian-language media channels. “The leaders of the terror organizations have recently increased their threats of a comprehensive regional war, in response to Israeli threats to assassinate terror operatives and those who dispatch them,” wrote Carmon.

Carmon’s warning proclaimed that Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and other Iranian-backed proxy groups were acquiring and deploying increasingly sophisticated weapons and tactics that would compel a major Israeli reprisal. Those weapons “can cause a large number of Israeli fatalities,” Carmon wrote.

But that didn’t cause alarm in Jerusalem or Washington—or cause much reaction at all. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the week before Hamas’s attack that “the Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.”

For years, the American Psychological Association has had a problem it has been unable or unwilling to address, summed up by Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) as a “persistent and pernicious pattern of antisemitism.”

Now, a bipartisan federal advisory committee to the U.S. Department of Education has decided to do something about it. Late last month it recommended, in a 7 to 4 vote, that the federal government suspend its recognition of the APA’s accrediting arm, its Commission on Accreditation (APA-CoA).

The current accreditor of 1,320 professional education and training programs at the master’s, doctoral, doctoral internship, and postdoctoral residency level in psychology, the APA-CoA has an important hand shaping the standards and best practices of trainees at a time when the standing of higher education has drawn widespread skepticism.

It started with a tiny blue bottle next to the cash register at a 7-Eleven.

The year was 2023. Colin was a college student in Los Angeles and “dealing with a lot of social anxiety,” he told me, when he paid $9 for a Feel Free, a drink marketed as an alcohol-free “social tonic.” The two-ounce bottle contained kratom, a natural substance that can improve focus and produce an opioid-like high when consumed in higher doses. Colin had seen Feel Free on social media and on the shelves at Erewhon, a high-end health-food grocery chain in Southern California with locations in places like Beverly Hills and Manhattan Beach.

At first, Feel Free solved a lot of Colin’s problems. The sense of isolation he had felt since starting college during the pandemic evaporated. He found it much easier to study—and to party. His focus improved, and his social anxiety melted away.

Those little blue drinks felt “like some kind of wonder drug that I had just kind of stumbled upon,” said Colin, now 25. He asked to be identified by his first name because he fears that he could lose his job if his employer found out that he uses Feel Free.

Before long, Colin was drinking eight bottles of Feel Free every day, even though the drink’s manufacturer says not to exceed one bottle per day. He couldn’t stop. If he didn’t drink one right when he woke up, he got a splitting headache. He hid his Feel Free habit from his girlfriend and parents until early 2025, when he quit cold turkey and plunged into withdrawal: no sleep for three nights, restless legs syndrome, and nausea. “It was like an incredibly strong itch inside your body that you’re not able to scratch,” he said, and “the most uncomfortable feeling I’ve ever felt.”