The Free Press

The rise of antisemitism and anti-American sentiment across the West is something we’ve covered extensively at The Free Press in recent years. New incidents emerge almost daily; last night, anti-Israel protesters gathered near Park East Synagogue in Manhattan, waving Hezbollah flags and chanting “Settlers, settlers, go back home, Palestine is ours alone.” Last week, another group of protesters in New York City, reportedly including students from Columbia and the City University of New York, chanted, “We support Hamas here.”

With each development, the same questions arise: How do such primitive, hateful ideas gain traction? And why does one of the most productive and prosperous civilizations in human history seem to be destroying itself from the inside?

These are the questions political strategist Warren Kinsella takes up in his new book, “The Hidden Hand: The Information War and the Rise of Antisemitic Propaganda,” which examines the spread of these corrosive ideologies in the aftermath of October 7. It’s no accident, Kinsella argues in an excerpt adapted from the book, that Hamas-inspired viewpoints have captured a generation. Rather, it reflects a highly coordinated effort by the terrorist group itself, whose operatives rank among the most sophisticated users of social media in the world. —The Editors

There is a thread.

In the past, white supremacists and Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazis lost more battles than they won. They would run for political office and usually come last, or close to it. They would try to promote hate in a classroom and get fired. They would stand on street corners shouting about conspiracies and get laughed at, ignored, and sometimes arrested. In public opinion surveys, they, and their views, would register in fractions of puny percentage points.

In the mid-1990s, as the internet became available to everyone, everything changed. It’s surprising to many, but it is the truth: The neo-Nazis and al-Qaeda were on the internet long before Twitter or Facebook. They had websites, in the early days, that were more visually appealing than those of national governments. They had a message, a strategy. Notwithstanding their comparatively small ranks, notwithstanding the limits of their bank accounts, notwithstanding the unpopularity of their message, they could—for the first time—be heard and seen by potentially billions of people.

They had finally been handed a formidable weapon with which to attack their shared enemy: the Jew. And in the years since, they’ve continued to use it. Since October 7, 2023, in particular, Hamas and their allies have done so to remarkable effect, capturing the sympathies of millions.

That is the thread that connects Hamas with all the bigots and antisemites who went before them: They’d discovered a new way to defeat the enemy. They had discovered the power of the online campaign.

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.

It’s Wednesday, May 6, and reportedly, within 48 hours, the U.S. expects Iran’s response to a framework that brings both sides closer to a deal than at any point during the war. The proposed pact trades an Iranian uranium-enrichment freeze for U.S. sanctions relief, unfrozen assets, and a mutually reopened Strait of Hormuz. This framework is strictly an interim measure; if the final negotiations collapse, a return to all-out war is entirely possible.

Still, it is unfortunate timing. Last night, a very senior Israeli intelligence source estimated to me that if the status quo blockade remains, the Islamic Republic “will not survive 2026.” Predicting the complete collapse of a half-century-old theocracy within the next eight months sounds like a bold gamble—until you look at the math.

The Iranian rial is in free fall, crashing to 1.8 million to the U.S. dollar. That is a 25 percent plunge from the exchange rate that triggered mass protests just this past January—and it’s only getting worse. To prevent mass starvation, the government is propping up a heavily subsidized exchange rate of 285,000 rials per dollar just to import basic food supplies. The wider economy is faring no better. Even before the blockade, non-oil trade had plummeted by 50 percent. The much-touted economic “pivot to China” has failed entirely, trade is down 80 percent, and regional hubs for evading sanctions, like the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have slammed their doors shut. Two million Iranians have lost their jobs already, and that number is expected to skyrocket.

As part of our celebration of America at 250, we’ve started a weekly newsletter by historian Jonathan Horn. Learn what happened this week in American history, why it matters, and what else you should see and read in The Free Press and beyond. This week, Jonathan looks at President Donald Trump’s plan for a 250-foot triumphal arch in honor of America’s 250th birthday. To get this newsletter in your inbox every week, sign up here. —The Editors

From the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., take the Arlington Memorial Bridge over the Potomac River, and you’ll come to a traffic circle where roads leading north and south (including one to George Washington’s Mount Vernon) meet. Inside the circle is a grassy field, which lies conspicuously free of granite, limestone, or marble. Naturally, the undeveloped spot has caught the eye of the country’s most powerful real-estate developer: President Donald Trump. If he gets his way, a 250-foot triumphal arch will soon rise there in honor of America’s 250th birthday.

Per a recent Washington Post survey, only 21 percent of Americans share Trump’s vision for what would be the world’s largest triumphal arch. In fairness, there hasn’t been much of a discernible public relations campaign to build support. Like so many of the president’s proposals for sprucing up the nation’s capital, the gargantuan arch seems to have come out of left field (technically, right field, given the river’s southeasterly flow). As it turns out, however, plans for erecting a monument on the site have a long history—one that leaves space for the president and his critics to do something that would really be a tribute to America’s past: compromise.

It’s Wednesday, May 6. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Eli Lake asks, is the war back on? A Cornell student rejects calls for his university’s president to be fired. Razib Khan on a consensus-shattering new scientific paper about human evolution. Plus: Will Rahn chats with two Catholics about UFOs and aliens. All that and more.

But first: the radicals storming the gates of the Democratic Party.

Have the radicals arrived? In the eight months since he launched his Senate campaign, Graham Platner has risen from populist outsider with a Nazi tattoo to presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party. Last week he edged out Janet Mills, Maine’s sitting governor, from the Senate primary. And he took a victory lap over the weekend when he spoke to delegates of the state party he just conquered.

Typically, a convention speech is a chance to tack toward the center and rally the party around its most popular ideals. Instead, Platner leaned into the hardened class warfare that powered his rise. “For decades, the powerful have taken,” he told the crowd. “Piece by piece, store by store, hospital by hospital, shore by shore, they have taken.” He named the supposed thieves: “billionaires,” “corporations,” “oligarchs,” and “the Epstein class.” And he devoted his campaign to “taking back what is ours.”

A man like Platner might never have reached this summit even a few years ago. Especially among Democrats, professional leaders and donors could usually crush upstart candidates by directing funds toward their preferred, established nominees. This time, that tactic failed badly. Platner lapped Mills in fundraising, and she cited her dwindling coffers when she dropped out.

What changed? Today Ruy Teixeira explains how left-wing candidates found a new source of funding. It’s tipping the scales in primary races, and it could change the face of the party entirely.

Platner isn’t alone. In the Michigan Senate primary, left-wing candidate Abdul El-Sayed has also surged in the polls after entering the race near the bottom of the pack. He’s harshly critical of Israel, and he enlisted anti-Zionist Twitch streamer Hasan Piker for the biggest events of his campaign.

El-Sayed’s aim is to spread a message; governing is an afterthought. Dan Saltman believes radicals are taking over politics because voters increasingly favor performers over producers. Will Michigan voters endorse that approach? Their choice will reflect the direction of the nation.

—Mene Ukueberuwa

• Primary voters in Ohio took to the polls on Tuesday, teeing up hotly contested congressional and gubernatorial races. Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy secured the GOP nomination and will face Democrat Amy Acton in November. Former Democrat senator Sherrod Brown will face Republican incumbent Jon Husted, who was appointed to the seat when J.D. Vance, who unseated Brown, became vice president.

• A handful of Indiana state senators lost to Trump-backed challengers in primary elections on Tuesday, just months after they bucked President Trump’s call to redistrict Indiana. Republican Gregory Goode, who voted against the redistricting push, won reelection after defeating two challengers, one of whom was endorsed by Trump. Roughly $12 million was spent in seven races to oust the Republicans who refused the redistricting attempt.

• Cole Allen, the alleged attempted assassin at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury on four counts, including attempting to assassinate the president of the United States. Allen was also charged with two firearm-related offenses and assault of a police officer with a deadly weapon.

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed that the U.S.-Iran ceasefire remains intact, even after two U.S. naval vessels dodged Iranian missiles and a drone on Monday while escorting commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. “The ceasefire is not over,” he told reporters, noting that the escort mission, dubbed “Project Freedom,” is separate from Operation Epic Fury.

• The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued The New York Times on Tuesday, alleging that the organization violated federal civil rights law by passing over a white male employee for a promotion. “Federal law is clear: Making hiring or promotion decisions motivated in whole or in part by race or sex violates federal law,” EEOC chair Andrea Lucas wrote in a statement.

• The Education Department opened a federal civil rights probe on Monday into Smith College, an all-women’s college, for admitting transgender women. “Allowing biological males into spaces designed for women raises serious concerns about privacy, fairness, and compliance under federal law,” said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey.

• Two people are dead, and three more are injured after a shooting inside a Korean supermarket outside of Dallas on Tuesday morning. A 69-year-old man, Seung Han Ho, was taken into custody, police said, after a brief foot chase. The shooting is believed to have started after what authorities called a “business meeting.”

• Thirty theater productions were nominated for this year’s Tony Awards, the group announced Tuesday morning. The nominations are 12 fewer than last year, largely due to a smaller pool of eligible productions currently performing. The two most-nominated shows were Schmigadoon! and The Lost Boys.

On Tuesday morning, as I walked to class at Cornell University, I saw a flyer taped to a pole. On it was a Photoshopped image of Cornell president Michael Kotlikoff, driving and looking at his phone as he crashes into a man on the street. “Another Day in Kotlikoff’s America,” read the caption.

This image, along with many others circulating over the past few days, refers to a now-viral moment that occurred on campus last Thursday. After a campus event, Kotlikoff was followed and harassed by members of the anti-administration group Students for a Democratic Cornell. As he pulled out, surrounded by the protesters, he was accused of hitting a student and rolling over another’s foot. The event in question was part of an Israel-Palestine debate series sponsored by the Cornell Political Union. Thankfully, nobody was seriously injured.

The Iran conflict has entered its metaphysical phase. Like Erwin Schrödinger’s famous thought experiment involving a cat that is simultaneously dead and alive, in the Strait of Hormuz there is both a war and a ceasefire.

On the one hand, President Donald Trump sent a letter to Congress on May 1 officially informing them that the “hostilities that began on February 28, 2026, have terminated.” On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters that the ceasefire that came into effect on April 7 was still in force. Even Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, posted on X that events in the Strait of Hormuz “make clear that there’s no military solution to a political crisis.”

In 1859, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. It revolutionized our understanding of biology. Darwin also inadvertently centered evolutionary theory in the intellectual debates of Victorian-era Britain. Is man indeed a beast? Does he have an immortal soul? Is he a special creation? Darwin’s work triggered a change in the understanding of humans in the universe.

Still, though Darwin created the modern understanding of human origins, his theory and the work that followed him for decades left open the question of how humanity has evolved in more recent millennia. Yet for decades it was common for evolutionary biologists to insist that human evolution had essentially stopped tens of thousands of years ago.

The question of recent human evolution has existed to a large degree in the shadow of famed paleontologist and naturalist Stephen Jay Gould. Gould’s theory of punctuated equilibrium held that genetic evolution proceeded in fits and starts. And for Gould, humanity was in a period of genetic stasis, because humans were now adapting to new conditions by changing culture and lifestyle, not genes. “There’s been no biological change in humans in 40,000 or 50,000 years,” Gould argued in an interview published in 2000. “Everything we call culture and civilization we’ve built with the same body and brain.”

Speaking on a podcast earlier this year, Vice President J.D. Vance—a convert to Catholicism—theorized that UFOs might be a demonic trick.

“I don’t think they’re aliens, I think they’re demons,” Vance said. When asked to expand, he noted that “every great world religion, including Christianity, the one I believe in, has understood there are weird things out there. . . there’s a lot of good out there, but there’s also some evil out there.”

Vance made sure to note that his views weren’t grounded in any sort of secret information to which he was privy, saying he had not had time to dive into any confidential government information about UFOs. But the idea that UFOs should be seen through more of a religious lens than a strictly scientific one is not new, and one we’ve even touched on earlier.

As we close out this four-part series about what everyday Americans should think about UFOs, we are joined by two people who have put a lot of thought into the religious aspect of all this: Diana Pasulka and Ross Douthat.

Pasulka, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, is the author of American Cosmic, which examined UFOs as both a religious and nuts-and-bolts technological phenomenon. She has visited the scene of a supposed UFO crash site in New Mexico looking for the elusive hard evidence of intelligent life beyond our planet. A practicing Catholic, Pasulka also combed through Vatican archives looking for clues as to what these things might be. Her new book, out in July, is The Others: UFOs, AI, and the Secret Forces Guiding Human Destiny.

Douthat, a conservative columnist for The New York Times, is a UFO-curious Catholic himself. After President Donald Trump promised to release the government’s UFO files in February, Douthat wrote about his four big questions on the subject for the White House in a Times essay.

Watch the video above, or check out a condensed and edited partial transcript of the interview below.

Will Rahn: How did you become interested in UFOs?

Ross Douthat: I would say that I had never had really strong interest in what gets called UFOlogy, or anything associated with the landscape of abduction narratives or any of that stuff, really at all until the late 2010s, when my own newspaper, The New York Times, published a series of stories on the subject. But the core thing that got published was footage from Navy pilots and national security footage, basically showing what people are supposed to call Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.

Will Rahn: We just call them UFOs here.

RD: I’d put it this way: To the extent that I had an interest in the subject, it was primarily along some of the same lines as, I think, where Diana started out as an academic researcher on this subject, where I’m a Catholic, I’m interested in religion, and I’m interested in religious experience. I think there are ways in which elements of the UFO phenomena look sort of like characteristic—but at the same time, extremely bizarre forms of—spiritual and supernatural experience of the sort that would fit pretty comfortably inside a kind of William James–style account of the varieties of religious experience.

So that was sort of my baseline. And the reason I have become more interested in it, without achieving the level of expertise that Diana enjoys, is that the strange thing about the last five or 10 years is that a lot of people, both inside the government and around the U.S. government, have acted like there is something a little bit more objective associated with this. It’s not just something that you would analyze in terms of people’s subjective experiences. There are mystical experiences, there are weird encounters, but there might be something more concrete.

And I don’t have a coherent theory of what that concrete thing is. But it’s a very strange world where my sense is that people as diverse as Chuck Schumer and Marco Rubio think that there might be something sort of hidden inside the vastness of the U.S. national security state related to this phenomena. I’m interested in it more than I used to be, because I feel like people in the government who are themselves not conspiracy theorists or anything like that are also very strangely interested in it as well.

Nobody, ever, has pinned a poster of Gary Peters to their bedroom wall. Most Americans, shown his face, could not place him. If forced to guess, they might land on “regional insurance executive,” which I suppose is close enough to the truth.

Peters is the senior senator from Michigan, and he is retiring next year. He is also, by a wide margin, the single most effective American legislator of the past two decades. In a single two-year span, he personally authored 19 stand-alone bills that became law, the most by any senator in four decades. The nonpartisan Center for Effective Lawmaking has rated him the most effective U.S. senator for three consecutive Congresses, based on a formula that measures their success in advancing meaningful legislation. His score in the most recent Congress is the highest they have ever recorded, for anyone, ever.

Between 2017 and 2021, the number of American children with gender dysphoria who started taking puberty blockers doubled. In the vast majority of cases, their parents sought medical help because their kids were distressed about their gender—and they were told the drugs’ effects were safe, reversible, and necessary. But now those children are adults, and some are finding that the treatment has long-term consequences that they weren’t prepared for—in some cases permanent and devastating ones. A growing number are speaking out and pursuing legal action, determined to save another generation from their fate.

The legal system is still catching up. In February, we exclusively reported on the first malpractice suit brought by a de-transitioner to go before a jury—a case that ended with a $2 million verdict for Fox Varian, a 22-year-old who sued the providers who oversaw her gender transition as a minor. Legal experts say the verdict could open the floodgates. Then the Supreme Court ruled 8–1 that conversion therapy bans—which can penalize therapists who encourage kids to see gender dysphoria as a treatable disorder rather than an identity—violate the First Amendment. California has proposed a civil loophole through SB 934, a bill that would give patients whose therapists had questioned their gender identity more latitude to sue their providers for malpractice.

Jonni Skinner, 23, is a critic of the bill. He spent almost a decade on puberty blockers and hormones, because when he was 13, he says, a therapist told him he was in the wrong body. He’s now de-transitioned, but after this treatment, he says, his body will never be the same again. That’s why Jonni traveled to California to testify against the bill, and why he told The Free Press his story—so the next vulnerable child who walks into a gender clinic looking for answers doesn’t have to endure what he did.

—The Editors

I’m a gay man who testified last month against what has been called a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender-rights bill. I was there because I believe the proposed law could silence the one kind of help that could have saved me from years of anguish and a future permanently marked by what was done to me as a child.

I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian town in rural Michigan with 2,500 people, one red light, and a pervasive drug problem. My parents split when I was a baby: My biological father was a deadbeat I’ve met only a handful of times; my mom worked constantly as the primary breadwinner for our family, building multiple small businesses in the car world.

From my earliest awareness, I knew I was not like other kids—and certainly not like other boys. I moved and spoke in ways others called “girly.” I loved dress‑up games, butterflies, and anything pink. I was obsessed with The Princess and the Frog and looked up to Disney princesses more than any male character. I also knew, from a very young age, that I liked boys. I didn’t have words for it then, and in the world I grew up in, it was considered sinful and shameful. But the feeling existed long before I had any name for it.