2024—It’s Rough Out There

A special archive edition of The Hive. [View in your browser]( | [Update your preferences](newsletter=vf) [Vanity Fair Hive logo image]( 2024—It’s Rough Out There Good morning. Four years ago was [a harrowing time](. You may recall this, but you’re also in good company if you don’t, as it seems that a significant pocket of voters have Trump amnesia—or if not amnesia, Eric Lutz [remarks](, then a “whitewashed view” of the Trump years. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on which way you lean), this time around, Donald Trump is not hiding his explicitly dark authoritarian plans. His 2024 presidential campaign is a frightening evolution of his brand: “He is running as a would-be dictator out for revenge,” [writes]( Gabriel Sherman. We should take him “literally and seriously,” [remarks]( Molly Jong-Fast, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we should take him credulously. For instance, as Bess Levin [notes](: Just because Trump says he’ll never call for restricting birth control, that doesn’t mean he—the man who essentially installed the Court that overturned Roe v. Wade—won’t let states do what they want. Meanwhile, in Wilmington, Delaware, Joe Biden’s reelection team is acutely aware of the stakes. Democracy is literally on the line, and those within Bidenworld have a marked plan ([read: debates!]() to counter the deafening polls. But Chris Smith [writes]( that one part is still unnerving: “So much of the victory calculus hinges on voters, once they’ve heard the relevant facts, behaving rationally.” Another variable we have on our radar as the year keeps churning out new reasons for us to exclaim? [Robert F. Kennedy Jr.](—yes, the third-party presidential candidate with a not-insignificant amount of support in the polls, who said that [a worm once crawled]( into his brain, ate part of it, and died. Thanks for reading. [Image may contain: Donald Trump, Adult, Person, Head, and Face]( [Inside the Terrifyingly Competent Trump 2024 Campaign]( By [Gabriel Sherman]( [With Donald Trump mostly focused on his own legal peril—leaving staffers free to run the campaign—the candidate’s third bid for the White House is as efficient as it is explicitly authoritarian. How worried should you be? Very.]( [Read more button](   [“We’re Not Selling Hysteria”: Inside the Cold Calculation and Unyielding Optimism of the Biden Brain Trust]( By [Chris Smith]( [In Wilmington, Joe Biden’s reelection team is tackling stubborn polls, Gaza protests, and third-party threats as it assembles a sophisticated machine to defeat Donald Trump. And the stakes couldn’t be higher: “We could lose the thing that matters most to me,” says campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon, “which is a future for my kids.”]( [Read more button](   [Why Biden’s Debates With Trump Could Be His Meal Ticket]( By [Mark McKinnon]( [The president has laid down the gauntlet. And it could be his best way—maybe his only way—to win a second term.]( [Read more button](   [None of This Is Normal]( By [Molly Jong-Fast]( [Donald Trump’s 2024 bid is an antidemocratic revenge fantasy being treated like a conventional political campaign.]( [Read more button](   [Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World]( By [Joe Hagan]( [Vanity Fair hits the Kennedy family’s Cape Cod compound for a peek into the controversial 2024 candidate’s wet hot American summer.]( [Read more button](   Get on the list Subscribe to our Hollywood newsletter for your essential industry and awards-season news, every day. [Sign Up Now](   [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( [LinkedIn](   This e-mail was sent to you by The Hive. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our e-mail address, vanityfair@newsletter.vf.com, to your address book. View our [Privacy Policy]( [Unsubscribe]( Sent from Condé Nast, 1 World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007 Copyright © 2024 Condé Nast