The Free Press

America is turning 250, and The Free Press is marking the occasion with a yearlong series of events, conversations, and stories celebrating our country’s history. Today, we’re taking a journey with historian Beverly Gage to Southern California. Beverly traded the archives for the open road for her new book, This Land is Your Land: A Road Trip Through U.S. History. We’re proud to publish an excerpt, on the theme park that shaped American politics—and the presidents who loved it. —The Editors

On July 17, 1955, Ronald Reagan stood near a mocked-up wood-plank town in Anaheim, California, where a 13-star flag flew incongruously over an “Old West” landscape, and introduced the world to Disneyland. He had been invited by Walt Disney himself to co-host the park’s live ABC broadcast, alongside Art Linkletter and Bob Cummings—three Hollywood actors who seemed to embody a wholesome, all-American ethos. From the imagined past of Frontierland, the show leaped ahead to Tomorrowland, set in the far-off year of 1986, emphasizing the technical marvels yet to come: nuclear energy harnessed for civilian purposes, human beings riding rocket ships into space. Disney foretold great things for a 1980s in which the United States would serve as “a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.” But even he could not predict the most important political fact of the age: that his genial co-host would become president.

Southern California was a strange place to build a park about the past, because the region at the time was all about newness and abundance and growth. For a lot of its history, Orange County had been Southern California’s version of flyover country: a vast agricultural expanse between two desirable places, Los Angeles and San Diego. But Disneyland was changing that. Before long, 50 miles south of deep-blue Hollywood, Orange County would become a region famed for its right-wing politics—but also for its mythmaking skills. Those two things, it turned out, went naturally together.

The two presidents Southern California gave America both understood this instinctively. Richard Nixon and Reagan each built a national career on invoking a version of the American past in which the specificities of historical context mattered less than the big picture. For Nixon, progress meant proclaiming a “New American Revolution” on the eve of America’s bicentennial while dismantling the federal programs that had built the postwar middle class. For Reagan, it meant recapturing a lost optimism and an old-fashioned faith in America as an exceptional nation. Both men were less interested in history as it actually happened than in history as it felt—and Orange County, a place that had built itself almost entirely from scratch, turned out to be exactly where the myth of America’s future was getting made.

I’m a historian—and historians tend to be myth-busters. With the country’s 250th birthday on the horizon, I figured it was a good time to step out of the ivory tower and check in with the past as it exists here and now, at the museums and monuments and roadside attractions where Americans go to learn about their history. After all my travels—to Davy Crockett’s Tennessee and Texas, to the real Erie Canal, to the birthplace of the American automobile and the actual Old West—I couldn’t miss out on Disneyland, the single most influential historic attraction in U.S. history.

“In economics, things take longer to happen than you think they will,” the economist Rüdiger Dornbusch famously observed, “and then they happen faster than you thought they could.”

He had financial crises in mind. In history, and especially the history of war, it’s different. Wars take much less time to start than you think they will, and last much longer than you thought they could.

Looking back on the first few months of my writing about the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, I consistently underestimated how long the war would last. At first, like most Western intelligence agencies, I assumed Ukraine would be overrun. Then, when I realized the Ukrainians had won the Battle of Kyiv and halted the Russian advance, I expected there would be a ceasefire. It took me until the end of the year to use the word stalemate. Four years, two months, and two weeks since it began, the war rages on. I know of no one who at the outset foresaw a war that will soon have lasted as long as World War I.

I begin to wonder if I have made the same mistake with the U.S. war against Iran. When Operation Epic Fury was launched on February 28, I was confident of one thing: that it would be a short war. Well, here we are, nearly 10 weeks later.

Of course, you may be one of those cheerful optimists who thinks the war is already over—indeed, that it ended with the ceasefire announced on April 8. But a ceasefire is not a peace agreement. Consider the events of the past week.

On April 29, leaked American diplomatic cables revealed that the administration was exploring the possibility of a new international coalition to restore freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. On May 4, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced Project Freedom, a quasi escort mission designed to open the strait to outbound shipping. Later that day, Iran launched a drone and missile attack on the United Arab Emirates, the first since the ceasefire began. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) also launched drones and missiles at U.S. ships. The U.S. said it sank six Iranian fast-attack boats as they swarmed commercial vessels.

The ceasefire was literally over. Wasn’t it?

Dear Abigail,

Can I tell my stepdaughter that her mom is a bitch?

Three years ago, I fell in love with an amazing guy and his delightful 10-year-old daughter. I never had any kids of my own, and I had thought that ship had sailed, so I feel so incredibly lucky to have this wonderful little family in my life. I also know how lucky I am that his co-parenting relationship is relatively drama-free. In fact, for the first couple of years, his ex was barely in the picture.

Technically, my partner and his ex share custody 50-50. In practice, though, he has been the primary parent, taking care of all the practical parenting stuff—from doctors’ appointments to teacher conferences—while his ex was out “finding herself” on his dime. Her much-younger boyfriend didn’t like kids, so she often only saw her daughter a couple of days a week, and spent her weekends basically pretending that she didn’t have one.

Now, she has a different boyfriend, who apparently likes kids, so suddenly she wants to spend more time with her daughter. Obviously, we understand and appreciate that a kid needs her mom, but it’s really hard on my partner that Mom now gets to be the “fun” parent.

At Mom’s house, his daughter never has to do anything she doesn’t want to do. Mom doesn’t make her do her homework. Mom doesn’t make her practice her flute. Mom doesn’t make her take a shower. Of course my partner’s daughter wants to make up for lost time with Mom, but it’s painful watching him have to hear about how much better everything is at Mom’s house.

His daughter has no idea why she spent more time with dad in the beginning. She doesn’t know her mom didn’t WANT to take her when she walked out on their family. She doesn’t know her mom cheated on her dad, broke his heart, and then took him for every penny he had. Nor should she. I’m pretty sure it’s better that she doesn’t know any of this. Isn’t it?

But I’ve gotta tell you, sometimes I’m nearly biting my tongue off to not tell her all of this. I wish I could tell her the reason her mom can take her skiing and horseback riding and on trips to the Bahamas: Dad pays for all of it.

Abigail, please talk me down off this ledge before I say something I’ll regret, something I’m pretty sure won’t actually help anything, but will just stir up a bunch of drama where it need not be.

Thanks,
Phoebe, 52

Phoebe,

For years, I had doubts about the King Solomon story—the one where two women fight over the maternity of a baby. Was it credible that any woman could claim to love a child and then, in the next breath, cheer Solomon’s solution—that he slice the child in two?

And then along you come, Phoebe, claiming to love this little girl, willing to see her torn apart. If I hadn’t received other letters of a similar vein, I would not have believed someone who professes to care for a child could ask: “Can I tell my stepdaughter that her mom is a bitch?”

The fact is, Phoebe, you are in ample if not precisely good company. When it comes to children, adult loyalties, jealousies, and desires lead to gruesome moral blindness. Often, as in the King Solomon story, such sightlessness afflicts those who prioritize their own grievances at a child’s expense, as any divorce lawyer will attest.

With war raging in the Middle East, we want to bring you as many trusted voices on the news as we can. One such voice is the Israeli journalist Amit Segal. He writes a daily newsletter, It’s Noon in Israel, which we’re pleased to publish in The Free Press.

If you Google “the most dangerous job in the world,” prevailing opinion believes it to be logging. With a fatality rate of over 100 per 100,000 workers, it’s a tough gig, sure, but if we’re talking pure survival rates, an enemy of Israel would be better off picking up an axe. If Google factored in Israel’s efforts against Hezbollah in the last few years, the now-former commander of the terror group’s Radwan Force might have thought twice before taking a job that got his colleagues explosively vacated in 2024.

Regardless, Israel delivered a kinetic reality check last night with a precision strike in the majority-Shi’ite Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh. While the Radwan commander was the primary target, his deputy and other senior officials were also in the crosshairs; reports suggest the deputy survived, but the message was sent regardless. This marks a serious escalation, as it is Israel’s first strike on the Lebanese capital since the mid-April ceasefire began.

The agreement, forged with the intent of affording the U.S. room to maneuver in negotiations with Iran, is still technically in place. While it granted Washington the quiet it was craving, it has proven less satisfying for Jerusalem. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were hoping for a return to the “pre-Operation Roaring Lion” status quo with Hezbollah—which one might call an air strike equivalent of “I get to punch you, and you don’t get to punch me back.” But the circumstances have changed. The shadow of Donald Trump looming over Israel has emboldened the terror group; knowing the U.S. president is holding Israel back, Hezbollah has been poking at the north and throwing jabs at Israel’s security zone in southern Lebanon.

The IDF appears to have accepted this possibility, assuming Hezbollah didn’t have the capacity to inflict significant damage. That was until they introduced their deadly new weapon: fiber-optic, first-person-view drones.

It’s Thursday, May 7. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Aaron MacLean says Trump is poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the Iran war. Joe Klein on the life of CNN founder Ted Turner. Jillian Lederman on why cruise ships are here to stay. And much more.

But first: Is the FDA suppressing science?

On Tuesday, The New York Times published a story with an alarming takeaway. “FDA Blocked Publication of Research Finding Covid and Shingles Vaccines Were Safe,” read the headline. It is the latest in a string of stories that all have the same message: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and other agencies, are engaged in a cover-up—and silencing scientists trying to get the word out about the Covid vaccine.

What all these stories suggest—some more subtly than others—is that the outsiders now running the public health establishment, officials such as Marty Makary at the FDA and Jay Bhattacharya at the National Institutes of Health, are on a revenge tour. That they are doing harm to the country to get back at the scientists and bureaucrats who ostracized them for deviating from the public-health consensus during the pandemic. It’s a seductive narrative. But is it true? That’s the question we address in our latest editorial.

—The Editors

Join Aaron MacLean and Niall Ferguson on May 19 for a live recording of School of War at the iconic New York Historical. In a conversation as timely as it is wide-ranging, Aaron and Niall will explore the strategic stakes of the moment, including the Middle East, China, and the future of American leadership on the global stage.

Get Tickets Now

• Thirteen D.C. Metropolitan Police officers have been placed on administrative leave and could face termination after an internal investigation found evidence that crime statistics were manipulated to make the city look safer. The Republican-led House Oversight Committee previously alleged that former D.C. police chief Pamela Smith pressured officers to skew data.

• Tennessee Republicans unveiled a redrawn U.S. House map yesterday that would split up Memphis’s black-majority Democratic district, the latest move in a nationwide push to redraw congressional boundaries ahead of the midterms. The effort follows a Supreme Court ruling last week on Louisiana’s districts, which Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton said gave states the green light to redraw maps along partisan lines.

• Israel struck Beirut for the first time since a ceasefire with Hezbollah took effect last month, saying it targeted a commander of the militant group’s elite Radwan force in the city’s southern suburbs. The strikes risk destabilizing that truce at a delicate moment, as Iran and the U.S. report progress toward a deal to resolve their own standoff.

• The U.S. Air Force is aiming for a Fourth of July delivery of a Boeing 747 gifted by Qatar, hoping to add it to the Air Force One fleet in time for the U.S.’s 250th anniversary, Reuters reported. (For more on the controversy surrounding the aircraft, read Jed Rubenfeld’s piece “It’s a Terrible Idea, but Trump Probably Can Accept a Free Jet from Qatar.”)

• Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testified privately before Congress that he has no memory of why he and his family dined on Jeffrey Epstein’s private island in 2012, according to Reuters. The admission contradicts Lutnick’s earlier claim that he had cut ties with the convicted sex offender well before that visit.

• Weeks before a former JPMorgan investment banker filed a lawsuit packed with explosive allegations, the bank reportedly offered him $1 million to settle his sexual assault and harassment claims, according to The Wall Street Journal. The suit, filed by Chirayu Rana, alleges he was sexually assaulted by a female colleague, subjected to racial discrimination, and forced into a degrading dynamic at work. JPMorgan says the claims lack merit, and the female colleague’s lawyers call the accusations fabricated.

• A new report from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research shows that, for the first time in roughly 20 years, church attendance is trending upward, with more people volunteering and clergy expressing renewed optimism. The study’s authors described the findings, based on a survey of more than 7,400 congregations, as showing signs of widespread recovery from low attendance numbers.

For tickets to our live recording with Jon Meacham in Philadelphia, click here and register. Use code TFP for a 20 percent discount.

Roald Dahl gave the world Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He was also a vicious antisemite.

A Broadway play about Dahl’s legacy; the new Michael Jackson biopic; Kanye West’s attempt…

Ted Turner, who founded CNN and died Wednesday at 87, was a piece of work. He was one of the great media builders of the last century and one of the most restless, visionary, and genuinely decent men I have ever known. I got to spend a few months with him back in 1986, when we explored the possibility of me ghosting his autobiography. We went hunting, went to ball games, went to Moscow, and talked about everything, especially peace, politics, and the environment—three of his obsessions. Ultimately, the book didn’t work out, but the experience was transformative for me. I learned a great deal about the nature of genius and about the joy of chronic optimism.

The world began anew for Ted every day. Anything was possible. He had mad, exuberant highs—and, I suppose, there were some lows in there too, but I never saw them. I realized that genius wasn’t necessarily a matter of IQ. His was not a traditional intelligence, but one of horizon: Ted saw things before other people did. Most notably, he saw the future of cable television. He transformed a tiny UHF station—Channel 17 in Atlanta—into CNN, the network that invented round-the-clock news, and beyond that into TBS, TNT, and Turner Classic Movies.

Reading The New York Times and The Washington Post’s coverage of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the last few days, you’d be forgiven for concluding that the agency is engaged in a cover-up. Its scientists, so these reports relate, are trying their hardest to get the word out to doctors and the American public that the Covid vaccine is perfectly safe, and that getting the jab is in everyone’s best interest. They keep running studies that come to that conclusion. But those darned administration bureaucrats who run the FDA, from Commissioner Marty Makary on down, won’t allow those studies to be published, thus creating uncertainty about vaccines in the mind of the public.

“FDA Blocked Publication of Research Finding Covid and Shingles Vaccines Were Safe,” read the headline of a May 5 Times article. It quoted a Harvard University medical professor who said that what Makary et al. were doing amounted to “an act of censorship.” He described it as a “major scandal” that should lead to “congressional hearings and resignations of leadership.” The possibility that there might be another explanation for blocking the studies never seemed to enter the reporter’s mind.

The Post story, published the same day, additionally noted that this was not the first time the FDA had stopped the publication of a Covid vaccine study. The top brass at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had decided not to publish a report showing that last winter’s Covid vaccine cut the likelihood of hospitalizations. Or so the researchers claimed.

Somewhere off the coast of the Canary Islands, there is a cruise ship in turmoil. In early April, shortly after the MV Hondius set sail from Argentina, hantavirus—a highly fatal disease typically transmitted through rodents—broke out among the roughly 150 passengers and crew on board. Three people have died. Several more have been evacuated from the ship and escorted to the Netherlands for medical treatment. In the coming days, the ship is scheduled to dock in Tenerife, despite protests from the local government.

The images of the evacuations are dystopian. Health workers in hazmat suits approach the ship on a small boat, retrieving patients fitted head to toe in medical gear. The rest remain on board, sheltering in their rooms.

The situation is a living nightmare. And as it continues to make headlines, it’s hard not to think back to the peak of the Covid pandemic, when thousands were stranded on infected ships with nowhere to go. Most famously, in February 2020, the Diamond Princess cruise ship was quarantined for nearly a month off the coast of Japan after more than 700 of its 3,700 passengers contracted the virus.

The Donald Trump administration looks desperate for a deal to end the war with Iran.

This is a bad negotiating posture in any circumstances, let alone when dealing with the famously difficult envoys of the Islamic Republic. And yet on Tuesday evening, in return for no detectable concessions, President Trump suspended efforts to restore traffic through the Strait of Hormuz—the “Project Freedom” that had been announced so dramatically only two days prior, and then defended by cabinet officials throughout Monday and Tuesday.

The shocking nature of this climbdown was enhanced by the fact that, entirely predictably, the American operation had provoked an intense Iranian military response targeting the U.S. Navy, shipping in the strait, and targets on land in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The American response was to sink some Iranian small boats that were attempting to interdict shipping but to otherwise claim that the ceasefire held. The administration did not even condemn Iran’s attacks on the UAE, one of America’s most important allies in this war.

Reasonable people could disagree over how exactly to characterize this pattern of recent administration decisions—to which we might add the original sin of the current ceasefire, which is that it was offered in return for an Iranian opening of the strait, which did not happen and for which Iran suffered no consequences—but it would be a challenge to characterize it as “resolute.” Indeed, Iran’s now repeated dangling of the opening of the strait as an early concession begins to look like Lucy offering to hold the football for Charlie Brown to kick.