“It was a powerful speech, an angry speech. A necessary speech. It was also a speech that Biden wanted very much not to deliver. Because doing so meant acknowledging that, although Trump may be out of office, Trump and Trumpism have not been banished but live on as the dominating, unpleasant reality of American political life, a year after his appalling refusal to accept the election results should have exiled him forevermore from the public space. Whether or not Biden uses Trump’s name, it is hanging over his Presidency.” The New Yorker: Biden, Back Into the Breach.

+ OK, so what? He gave the speech. We’re still in the same boat we were in before the speech. Now what do we do? Richard L. Hasen has some ideas in the NYT (Gift Article): No One Is Coming to Save Us From the ‘Dagger at the Throat of America.’