The 2020 presidential campaign has lasted so long and so much coincided with the preoccupying effects of the COVID-19 pandemic that I began to think of it as a permanent feature of our national politics, the election a future event that would always be a few months away. When the first debate between President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden arrived, I was almost taken by surprise — wait, this is happening? Time is moving forward?
Evidently it is — the snow already on the ground here in Minnesota convinces me, if nothing else — and Election Day is finally nigh.
