It’s Friday, November 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: How Democrats won red states. Everything you need to read about the midterm elections. And much more.
But first: When did caring about your health become right-wing?
The tribal affiliations of the beliefs you hold dear can switch so fast that it gives you whiplash.
This is something many of today’s politically homeless Americans have learned through experience in the last decade or so. “I’ve heard my fellow refugees from the left say they have the exact same beliefs they’ve always held—about immigration or crime or biological sex—but somehow, these days, expressing them gets us labeled as Republicans or fascists,” writes Larissa Phillips in today’s essay.
And so it was interesting to watch in the run-up to this week’s midterm elections how some Democrats dialed back the rhetoric that so disappointed the nation’s normal lefties. For example, “James Talarico said it was ‘cringey’ that he once said God is ‘nonbinary’—and became the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in Texas since 1988,” writes Larissa. Even progressives reached out across the aisle. “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez privately met with the archetypal MAHA mom, Zen Honeycutt, then started talking about pesticides.”
If this is a sign of good political strategy, it’s also an illustration of how fickle a movement’s orthodoxy can be. In today’s essay, Larissa writes that as a left-wing mom in Brooklyn in the 1990s, it was perfectly acceptable not to give her baby certain vaccines—and to complain to the school about ultra-processed foods. A few years ago, she watched, confused, as these things became the preserve of Trump-voting women.
“I bristled a little—but not because of MAHA,” she writes. She was glad Republicans were objecting to food norms. “But the more the right has claimed this territory, the more the left seems to have let it go.” Once upon a time, the Democrats were the party of holding Big Agriculture and Big Food and Big Pharma to account. Now, it is the tribe that sneers at people who genuinely want to do their own research, because they dare to feel disillusioned with public-health authorities.
With the MAGA-MAHA alliance falling apart, perhaps the left can reclaim good health. For now, Larissa is “missing the spirit of the old left.”
—Freya Sanders
The Week the End of the Trump Era Began
At the end of an enormous news week, we want to take stock of what just happened, and re-up some of our reporting and writing about the day when the American electorate delivered a clear rebuke to Donald Trump and his Republican Party.
On election night in 2024, when Trump defeated Kamala Harris and pulled off the political comeback of the century, Eli Lake delivered the definitive take on “How Trump Won.” This Tuesday, Eli returned with a follow-up: “How Trump Blew It.” You can tell the story of the last two years in those two pieces. Read Eli’s election night report here:
As the shock waves from Tuesday night spread, we asked Free Press regulars for their first reactions, from Niall Ferguson on why Trump couldn’t escape political gravity to Caitlin Flanagan on the Democrats’ miraculous revival. And Victor Davis Hanson drew five lessons from the wipeout, the biggest of which may be how much we still don’t know.
If one explanation rises above the rest, Michael Brendan Dougherty argued, it’s the war with Iran. Trump ran on ending wars, then launched one. It’s a scenario Michael warned about in our pages over a year ago, and his account of how it unfolded is essential reading.
How did election night go down on the ground? For that, we turn to Olivia Reingold and Noah Bernstein. They were at the victory parties for Democrats in the two most closely watched states this cycle: Michigan and Texas, respectively. Read Olivia’s report from Abdul El-Sayed’s headquarters and Noah’s dispatch from the room celebrating when the Lone Star State turned blue.
Trump may own much of the blame, but Ross Douthat wrote that the new right, the conservative movement that rose after 2016, deserves its share, too. It set out to shape Trump’s second term around border security, American industry, and restraint abroad. Instead, the new right overreached on deportations, delivered data centers instead of factories, and couldn’t stop war in Iran.
As for the winners, Joe Klein said that Democrats should take their governing cues from the “quiet competence” of the moderate candidates along Interstate 35, the highway running from the Texas border up through Kansas, Iowa, and Minnesota, where the party notched some of the most surprising wins of its sweep. What did those candidates get right, and can the rest of the party follow their lead?
That’s just some of what we put out this week. And we’ll be bringing you much more on what the next two years hold in the coming days. But for now, TGIF and have a great weekend.
