Even for a nation obsessed with presidential politics, the past summer has furnished a shocking density of spectacle. The calamitous debate; the torpor over Biden’s decision-making and the internecine drama in the Democratic Party; the surreal assassination attempt against Donald Trump; the Republican National Convention that began two days later, where the hateful and punitive conservative project put itself on full display and coronated its new geriatric-millennial standard-bearer, J. D. Vance; Trump’s endless, soul-sucking RNC acceptance speech; Biden’s unassuming announcement-via-PDF of his decision to withdraw; the impossibly rapid rise of Kamala Harris in his place.