On Tuesday, does the apocalypse arrive?

I'm determined to look at the bright side: one of them has got to lose! And never, in my opinion, has a loser deserved it more. (I've already voted, as it happens. For a week I left the top of the ballot empty, thinking I might write in the name of the brain-worm guy, but on Saturday I gave up, inked a choice, sealed the ballot in two envelopes, and mailed it off.)

Ms Harris does have one thing going for her, after all: she's not Donald Trump. And Mr Trump has something going for him: he can only serve a single term, somewhat diluted by the fact that JD Vance could be with us until January 2037 ... and how does that make you feel?

Still, I can remember that April day in 1945 when we were called out of our elementary school classroom in Concord, Mass., to assemble in the schoolyard to hear the principal announce that President Roosevelt was dead, that Harry Truman was our president now, and that we should board the schoolbuses and go home. (They were, by a nice coincidence, ready to go, since it was four o'clock in the afternoon.) The girls cried; the boys babbled. For us kids, Mr Roosevelt was the only president the country ever had -- well, after George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, of course. Mr Truman by contrast was a zero. Yet he turned out fine, didn't he? So I suppose it's possible that, in spite of all the auguries of disaster, next Tuesday might similarly bless us with a consequential leader.