In the days leading up to Tuesday, election anxiety and exhaustion across the country have reached an all-time high — and rightly so, given the absolute chaos that has unfolded in recent months. Here’s a summary:
In May, former President Donald Trump was convicted of 34 crimes in his hush-money trial in New York, making him the first former president ever convicted of a crime.
Then President Joe Biden staged a disastrous debate against Trump in late June, leading to a series of panicked Democratic lawmakers urging him to quit the race. Biden fiercely resisted that pressure for weeks, but eventually stepped aside and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president. Democrats quickly rallied around the vice president, and the enthusiasm for Harris was palpable; her shortened campaign consistently produced record fundraising numbers.
Between Trump’s conviction in New York and Biden’s decision to leave the race, the US Supreme Court ruled that some of Trump’s actions as president are immune from criminal prosecution, a decision that delayed his sentencing in New York and could have repercussions will have for his other criminal cases. also.
On July 13, Trump was the target of an assassination attempt at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and images of a defiant Trump, fist in the air as Secret Service agents dragged him off stage, were plastered all over the stage . news.
That was just summer. Since then, Americans have been bombarded with Trump’s dark warnings about the infiltration of violent migrants (research shows immigrants commit far fewer crimes than US-born Americans), his blatantly racist and unsubstantiated claims about immigrants taking jobs and eating people’s pets , and his threats to punish his political rivals, government officials who oppose him, and journalists.
Trump was also the target of a second alleged assassination attempt near his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, in late September.
Harris, on the other hand, has portrayed Trump as a threat to democracy, and Democrats have campaigned on the further erosion of women’s rights if Trump were to win.
Election Day may not even be the end of this ordeal, especially if the results in swing states are as razor-thin as the polls have suggested.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
