There are eight days to go before the 2024 presidential election. Eight days that are going to feel like time has slowed down to the point where the human mind can no longer perceive any motion at all. It’s going to feel as if we’re eternally trapped in the most contentious election cycle in living memory. Good times. 

I’ve cast my vote already. There’s no part of the new cycle now that can influence my vote. That, of course, won’t stop the endless text messages, auto-dials, emails, television and radio ads, and breathless reporting from wall to wall. Millions of other Americans are in the same boat. We’ll wait and watch and hope that the whole thing doesn’t suddenly shift from absurdist farce to goddamned Greek tragedy.

As the antique machinery of the American electoral system creaks to life once again, I think many of us are holding our breath in hopes that the guardrails emplaced by the likes of James Madison and George Mason hold together one more time. The pressure we’ve put it under in the 21st century is immense – beyond, perhaps, anything the founders could have reasonably envisioned. As vitriolic as the election of 1800 was, it’s hard to imagine a victorious Thomas Jefferson turning the Army against the “enemy from within” who supported the vanquished John Adams.

I cast my first vote for president in 1996. Since then, I’ve voted for president faithfully every four years. The candidate I’ve voted for has won election maybe half the time. While I’ve often been disappointed at the outcome, 2024 marks the first year the closing days of an election of left me with an undeniable feeling of dread for what the future may hold in a United States where the norms and customs that have governed us for two and a half centuries no longer hold.