Everything about the hulking, sclerotic American state seems to move on autopilot. The levers of power — let alone of hope or change, the watchwords of another, now-distant election season — appear entirely out of reach. The illusion that the American electorate will in any meaningful way “make its voice heard” is looking especially threadbare this year. Free (or free-ish) elections are by definition not entirely predictable, but this fall’s approaching contest feels especially confounding. A rematch between a former president and an incumbent (a first in 130 years), both above the age of 75 (a first in American history), has seemed like a foregone conclusion for years, but it’s still difficult to imagine what Wednesday, November 6 will look like. Will we have an answer that morning, or, as in 2020, will the proceedings drag on under the shadow of threats and grumblings and live footage of poll workers carrying boxes of paper around community centers while protesters and prayer circles assemble outside? Will there be another wave of Capitol-stormers, or worse? 

Four years after his ouster, Trump has not only thoroughly insinuated himself into the fabric of American political life, but has also managed to mold the presidency in his image, setting himself up to reign as what Justice Sonia Sotomayor called “a king above the law.” Yet it’s delusional to think that President Biden — who has pretended to be tough on Netanyahu while enabling his annihilation of Gaza, with total disregard for international law — is in any meaningful way accountable either. Over the course of Biden’s term, the Democratic Party has done its best to circle the wagons, sealing him off from public scrutiny and critique. 

This issue, we’re thinking about fortresses, and fortress mentalities. Our Dispatches section looks at borders, border walls, and their vexed histories. In an essay on this spring’s campus demonstrations, Erik Baker shows us how the university enforces its own borders through gentrification and policing. Sam Worley traces Atlanta’s history of absorbing political action into its own mythology, from the civil rights movement to Stop Cop City. Writing about both Gaza and Iraq, Shaan Sachdev tracks the way that debates over death tolls can warp our conversations about war. Lily Scherlis wonders whether an increasingly dominant therapeutic model has politically neutering effects. Melvin Backman historicizes the novels of the black resort, and Frances Lindemann takes aim at memoirists who overidentify with the books that inspire them. Simon Leser, meanwhile, interrogates the motivations behind our seemingly endless quest to translate Proust. 

For our interview, we talked with the novelist Rachel Kushner about whether fiction has political power — and whether younger generations will save us. In stories by Diana Kole, Hannah Kingsley-Ma, and Gideon Jacobs, a son dictates his autobiography, a wife questions her husband’s narrative about his family, and a dad sexts a stranger. Poems by Ashley D. Escobar, Talin Tahajian, Michael Bazzett, and Jen Frantz consider repetitions and their interruptions, and our Mentions pass judgment on the ephemeral (site-specific puppetry at an alien-themed roller-skating rink in Santa Fe) and the eternal (Carmen, cane toads, “Take Me Home, Country Roads”). 

Between now and our next issue, we’re not walled off from critique. Please direct all complaints, diatribes, and helpful suggestions to letters@thedriftmag.com.