The Atlantic

The Weirdest Presidential Election in History

An unserious nation faces dire choices.
Source: Joe Sohm / Visions of America / Getty

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

We are heading into a rematch that promises to be weirder than any presidential election we’ve ever experienced. Let’s review where things stand.

First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:


Where Things Stand

More than two years ago, I wrote my first newsletter for The Atlantic, titled “An Unserious Country.” I was worried.

We’re facing a slew of challenges, from reinvigorated foreign enemies to a dedicated authoritarian movement at home. And yet, as a people, we and our elected officials seem unable to focus even for a nanosecond with enough seriousness and deliberation to muster the cooperative, can-do perseverance that once characterized the American spirit.

I wrote this 10 months after the January 6 insurrection, around the same time we learned that thousands of people had died due to their refusal to accept the lifesaving vaccines a few weeks before by insisting (in response to questions no one was asking him) that he was not into a certain kind of sexual activity that I will not repeat here. It was an unsettling time, but at least we could hope that with Trump defeated, politics would return to something like normal.

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