A compendium of the best reporting and commentary surrounding the pivotal 2024 elections in the United States. You won't find horse race coverage here, or the standard "both sides" BS that passes so often for political journalism. What you will find are links, with brief commentary, to work that I believe advances the conversation we should be having about America's – and the world's – future. Remember: Everything is at stake this year. (Unfortunately, some of the work I point to is behind paywalls.)
A Harvard CAPS Harris poll conducted last week showed 63 percent of voters still think the economy is on the wrong track under Biden, whose approval rating remains in the toilet. It’s not nice to tell voters they’re wrong, particularly given legitimate concerns about such long-term trends as growing income inequality and rural and Rust Belt decline. But voters are wrong about the Biden-Harris record, and if Harris and her fellow Democrats don’t give them the facts, they won’t learn the truth. Certainly Trump and his fellow Republicans won’t tell them.
The plain truth of this furious commentary may not make a difference, unfortunately. For one thing, aggregate statistics don't persuade people who haven't been told the truth, and are constantly goaded to fear everything. As Noah observes, the income and wealth gap between the ultra-rich and everyone else has continued to soar during the Biden administration. America's oligarchs are flaunting their power over everyone else. Cartels and monopolists control industry after industry. The hedge-fund and private-equity looters have gone unchecked, doing incalculable harm to communities across the nation. Inflation has been real, and painful, even though it was a global phenomenon and the U.S. had the lowest inflation among industrialized economies (among the things our news media have almost never bothered to report). Tens of millions of Americans are still a paycheck or two away from financial ruin. That's angst-inducing stuff. The Biden administration is pushing pro-labor and pro-consumer policies (notably including real antitrust enforcement), which take time to be noticed in the aggregate. It's fair to say that the Democrats have been incompetent at telling the public about the very real progress – and that the press, for whatever reason, hasn't cared to notice.
Trump and Vance, knowing full well that no evidence existed to support the pet-eating immigrant narrative, used the lie strategically. It wasn’t about truth— it was about stoking fear, playing into racist anxieties about immigrants and rallying their base around a common enemy. This is a despicable tactic that we’ve seen before, but the consequences in Springfield were swift and brutal. The local police were forced to spend precious resources responding to threats that stemmed from a conspiracy. Schools, government buildings, and local businesses had to shut down, costing the town time, money, and most importantly, its sense of security. Bomb threats weren’t just idle pranks — they were the culmination of a dangerous game that political figures had decided to play with real people’s lives.
Yesterday I urged you to view a heartbreaking video from Springfield, Ohio. It featured the parents of a boy who was killed in an highway accident caused by an undocumented immigrant. The parents condemned the right-wing extremists – including Trump and Vance – who were using this event for their rancid political purposes to stop, and and begged them to show some humanity. Of course, as this commentary says, the racist fear-mongers escalated their disgusting tactics throughout the saga. They demonstrate zero awareness, or concern, that they might help destroy Springfield and its people in the process. More of this is coming under the best of circumstances, at least in Republican-controlled states. But if Trump wins in November, everyone's community will be much more vulnerable to people who are generating racist, nativist fear and loathing, and who seem indifferent (at best) to the violence it spawns.
In this video, Democracy Docket's founder, Marc Elias, explains how the new RFKjr-Trump alliance is throwing sand into the election gears in swing states. The malign calculation – the pure cynicism – is breathtaking, and the consequences could tip the election.
Next, read the article below, which looks deeply into how this is playing out in North Carolina:
Its 4–3 decision will compel election administrators to destroy nearly 3 million already-printed ballots that featured Kennedy’s name and redesign 2,348 different ballot styles across the state to accommodate the eleventh-hour change. This complex process will significantly delay the distribution of new ballots—which will, in turn, unlawfully abridge early voting for everyone while jeopardizing the voting rights of service members overseas in clear contradiction of federal statute. It’s a nightmare for local election officials, who must now disregard the laws they’re sworn to uphold. And it’s an affront to North Carolinians at large, whose right to a fair, orderly election has been sabotaged by a lawless court and the candidate it so obviously favors.
The corruption of this decision is breathtaking. North Carolina's Supreme Court majority isn't just ignoring federal and state laws. It's proudly violating them, with absolutely clear partisan intent. It just doesn't get more flagrant. Kennedy's sabotage and the court's affirmation have two goals: 1) by blowing up the early-voting schedule, help Republicans win state elections; and 2) by extension, help Trump win the swing state's electoral votes. By the way, don't look to the U.S. Supreme Court – thoroughly and corruptly partisan in its own right – to lift a finger to ensure that North Carolina residents who are serving or or otherwise living abroad will be able to exercise their right to vote. What a travesty.
Smear tactics and factional politics shaped the bitter rivalry between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson during the first contested presidential election in 1796. Despite the founders’ distaste for self-promotion, the press became a battleground for attacking opponents. With a rematch in 1800 looming, the insults became increasingly hostile, leading the Adams administration to oversee passage of the Sedition Act, which directly threatened the country’s promise of free speech. Then, a bizarre deadlock between Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr, led Alexander Hamilton to intervene. That dispute sparked a deadly duel between Hamilton and Burr.
I'm a big fan of Retro Report. The nonprofit news organization brings historical context to current events, with thorough research and thoughtful reports. If it has any fault, it's in the sometimes too-neutral way it approaches topics that defy neutrality. In any case, this piece on negative campaigning's long history in America is a useful lesson. Speaking of which, if you are a teacher, Retro Report offers lesson plans for its reports. There are also full transcripts.
Voting is just part of democracy, but it's the essential place to start. Make sure you're registered. Doublecheck in the fall, well before Election Day, because in some states Republican officials are removing people, mostly those who tend to vote for Democrats, from voting rolls.
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Timothy Noah
Parker Molloy
Mark Joseph Stern
