| Dear Reader,
This comes to you at the very tail end of what has been the most dizzying election of my lifetime. From the depths of watching Joe Biden struggle to finish a sentence while debating Donald Trump, to the giddy excitement when the president stepped aside for Kamala Harris—who succeeded in unifying the party almost overnight, while a torrent of volunteers and donations poured in—to the deeply sobering realization that all of that still might not be enough, it has, as the kids say, “been a lot.”
The other night I was doomscrolling through election coverage on my iPad, comforted by a newly opened pint of Talenti’s Madagascan Vanilla Bean Gelato. The next thing I knew, my spoon was scraping the bottom of the container. In case you’ve been wondering, here at The Nation, we’re all a little bit on edge…
But we’ve also been busy putting together this month’s feast for the mind. Instead of bingeing on ice cream, why not savor John Semley’s thoroughly seasoned account of the return of Jon Stewart, sample Talia Lavin’s tart engagement with the modern trad wife, and gorge on Jesse Robertson’s wild ride through the US military’s love affair with gaming? And because not all news is good news, do please heed Jimmy Tobias’s early warning about the next terrifying animal-borne pandemic and Peter Davis’s timely reminder of America’s long insistence that war crimes are no big deal.
We’ve also assembled an assortment of deliciously engaging Books & the Arts pieces, such as Karrie Jacobs on a 21st-century approach to park-making, Vikram Murthi on HBO’s Industry, Bruce Robbins on campus free speech, Erin Somers on Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s new novel Long Island Compromise, and Anna Louie Sussman on optimization parenting.
Finally, since none of us will be getting much sleep the next few days, we’ve got columnists to keep you company, dispatches and editorials to keep you thinking—and even a Q&A with Nancy Pelosi! All guaranteed to be jam-packed with enough intellectual nourishment to tide you over until our next issue.
So dig in!
-D.D. Guttenplan
Editor, The Nation |
