Vox Sentences - What if we get climate change right?

It seems hard to believe that just three months ago, this election was shaping up to be a snoozer. Democrats were listless, Republicans were ebullient, and the electorate could barely rouse itself to care about the rematch to come. It was that oddest of seasons, an election year that could only be characterized as sleepy and slow — until it wasn’t. 

Three months to the day Joe Biden fumbled his way through his debate with Donald Trump, we find ourselves in a changed race and faced with something all too familiar: a photo finish in what both sides insist is an election with existential stakes. It might be all too much. But this is why we’re here: Vox’s mission is to distill what seems "too much" into something clear, legible, and approachable. 

As the race enters its final weeks, we’re here for you. If you haven’t yet, please sign up for our Election, Explained newsletter, a twice-weekly dispatch that brings you some of our best politics coverage. There’s also On the Right, Zack Beauchamp’s weekly newsletter on what’s happening with American conservatism. And of course, check out our Politics coverage on Vox.com, where we seek to bring clarity to chaos, find the larger stakes in small moments, and reveal what’s hidden in plain sight in the bewildering political landscape.   

This election year has already been brimming with surprises — and October isn’t even here yet. It’s gonna be a wild few weeks, and we look forward to explaining it all.

—Elbert Ventura, executive editor

The present – and future – of the American right

The last three Republican presidential candidates before Donald Trump were George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney. Bush has never endorsed Trump; Trump famously made fun of McCain for being a POW; Romney would probably be booed if he showed up at a Republican National Convention — if he’s invited at all. So: What happened to the GOP? Our latest package aims to unpack the stunning transformation of the party and the broader conservative movement under Donald Trump. We have pieces on the six thinkers who have shaped the Trumpian right; Trump’s stunning success in making the GOP more racially diverse; Project 2025 and the bind it’s put his campaign in; the GOP’s future in the event of a Trump loss; and much more. (And coming up in October: a series explaining where the American left is and where it’s headed.)

I give to charity – but never to people in the street. Is that wrong?

At its best, Vox’s journalism renders the complexity of the world in an accessible way without flattening that complexity. Sigal Samuel’s new twice-a-month advice column, Your Mileage May Vary, embodies that quality. Taking questions from her readers who pose knotty ethical dilemmas, Sigal embraces an approach that foregrounds value pluralism: the idea that people often have conflicting and equally valid values battling it out inside. Her latest, on how to think about whether to give to someone you see in front of you in your hometown, or to someone who may need it more far away, is a great example of the ethos in action. Do yourself a favor and sign up for the Future Perfect newsletter, where her advice column appears every other Sunday. 

🎧 What if we get climate change right?

Another Vox product that evinces comfort with nuance and ambiguity is Sean Illing’s The Gray Area. This week’s episode features Ayana Johnson, a marine biologist whose new book, What If We Get It Right? dares to dream of a future worth living amid the relentless doomerism of the present. Johnson’s engaging conversation with Illing resists pat answers about how we steer ourselves out of the climate crisis and sketches out an actionable path for humanity.

🎧 Today Explained battleground state series

Today Explained, our daily podcast, this week started a series that you should absolutely tune into through Election Day. Every Monday, for the seven weeks leading up to November 5, the Today Explained crew will focus on one of the seven battleground states and highlight what makes that state intriguing in 2024. The series kicked off this week with their episode on Georgia, where Republican members of the state election board have passed last-minute rule changes that Democrats and even fellow Republicans have decried. Is Georgia a portent of the election chaos to come? We’ll find out soon enough.

Explain It to Me

As you might imagine, we field questions from you all the time – and we figured, why don’t we go ahead and stand up a podcast and newsletter devoted to answering them? Introducing Explain It to Me, our latest project. On the podcast every week, Jonquilyn Hill answers a question from a listener; in your inbox every week, a rotating cast of Vox writers takes on a question from a reader in our Explain It to Me newsletter. This week, the podcast took on a query about an enduring issue that has plagued the English language for ages: Why do we say “like,” like, all the time? In the newsletter, Allie Volpe offers a helpful guide to a reader who asks: Is making friends as an adult really hard, or is it just me? We’re very excited about Explain It to Me, and hope you subscribe, sign up, and spread the word. 

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