Editor’s letter

“Of course, it’s 2020.” That was the first thought that entered my mind last week when a news alert lit up my phone announcing that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died. That the country would now be subjected to a brutal and divisive battle over her replacement seemed a perfectly natural development in a year that has thrown up a succession of anxiety-inducing news stories. The year kicked off with the U.S. and Iran teetering on the brink of war, following the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani by an American drone and retaliatory Iranian missile strikes on U.S. bases in Iraq. The impeachment trial of President Trump began days later, and a deadly new respiratory disease crept inexorably westward from China. Soon the world was in lockdown, coronavirus victims were piling up in morgues, and unemployment numbers were soaring. May brought the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, sparking a nationwide wave of protests and riots that in turn triggered a backlash against the Black Lives Matter movement. Natural disasters added to the chaos, with an unprecedented derecho storm flattening a swath of the Midwest and cataclysmic wildfires reducing more than 5 million acres of California and Oregon to ashes.

Given all this turmoil, it’s perhaps not surprising that a recent survey found about half of Americans report feeling some signs of depression—double the share in 2018. But the next three months will offer no mental relief. Partisan tensions will be pushed to new highs as the fight over the Supreme Court plays out alongside an election campaign that both Republicans and Democrats regard as an apocalyptic struggle for survival. We could see ugly court battles over contested election results and millions of Americans marching in the streets. There’s an apocryphal quote attributed to Vladimir Lenin: “There are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen.” Well,

2020 is shaping up to be quite the century.

Managing editor