{"id":176000,"date":"2026-11-03T10:00:41","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T15:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=176000"},"modified":"2026-11-03T13:34:27","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T18:34:27","slug":"campaign-literature-election-day-midterms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/11\/03\/campaign-literature-election-day-midterms\/","title":{"rendered":"Campaign Literature: Election Day 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

John Ashbery, Eleven Collages<\/a>. From issue. no 188 (Spring 2009).<\/p><\/div>\n

Today is Election Day in the United States, the second midterm referendum on the second Trump administration and, given that polls on the West Coast won\u2019t close until eleven this evening, it’s certain to be a long night of scanning the news. If you, like us, have spent the past week, month, year, reading polls, articles, and tea leaves, gaming out the chances that one party may win this or that Senate or House seat, you may, like us, now find yourself in need of some way to kill the next twelve or so hours. Here’s some loosely midterms-adjacent reading <\/span>from the archive to help you pass the time. <\/span><\/p>\n

PROSE
\n<\/small>A Town Like Kansas<\/span><\/a>
\nDiane Vreuls<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Last night I gave up sex, a political decision. Maria will not leave the convent for Baron von Trapp. She is up on the mountaintop singing. What is the highest point in Kansas?<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From issue no. 72 (Winter 1977)<\/span><\/p>\n

PROSE
\n<\/small>Why Visit America<\/span><\/a>
\nMatthew Baker<\/em><\/p>\n

There wasn\u2019t anything special about us. We were just an average town. Porch swings, wading pools, split rail fences, pump jacks bobbing for oil on the horizon. Meetings at town hall were well attended, sure, but we weren\u2019t some hotbed of insurgents. We didn\u2019t subscribe to any one brand of politics. We couldn\u2019t even be plotted onto your basic left\/right binary. Our town had everything: pro-lifers who supported gay marriage, pro-choicers who opposed gay marriage, climate change deniers who owned solar panels, universal health care campaigners who preferred private insurance, creationists with degrees in biology and geology, loyal conservatives, staunch liberals, moderates, radicals, and ornery retirees whose only real issue was guns. And yet that winter we found ourselves united by a common sentiment. We were fed up with our country. The executives were busy making donations that funded the campaigns of the politicians, the politicians were busy passing laws that protected the interests of the executives, and pretty much nothing else seemed to be getting done. We were antigovernment, we were anticorporate, but mostly we were normal people who couldn\u2019t afford to buy an election and had come to understand that our votes didn\u2019t mean shit. There were libertarians among us who had been pushing to secede for years now, but not until that winter, watching legal forms of graft being flaunted across the country like never before, did our town seriously begin to consider the proposition. The matter soon came to dominate our meetings. We knew that from a certain perspective seceding could be viewed as an act of treason, that it might mean arrest, might mean imprisonment, might even mean execution. And the debate at that final town hall meeting was appropriately heated. Most of us wavered, unsure which way we would vote until the very second those slips of paper got passed around. Several of us were so nervous that we felt faint. Ultimately, however, the decision was unanimous. We would rather face handcuffs, jail, even hanging, than spend another goddamned second living in that broke-down country. We voted to secede.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

From issue 230 (Fall 2019)<\/span><\/p>\n

INTERVIEW<\/small>
\nThe Art of Fiction No. 237<\/a>
\nDany Laferri\u00e8re<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Your mother once compared you to your father by saying that you have a terrible appetite for life.<\/p>\n

LAFERRI\u00c8RE<\/p>\n

Yes. My father was a politician and a political activist and a dandy. He would change shirts at least twice or three times a day. He was the youngest-ever mayor of Port-au-Prince.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

From issue no. 222 (Fall 2017)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE DAILY<\/small>
\nFor Our Cause Is Just<\/a>
\nLydia Moland<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI am not yet prepared to believe that the people of this republic are corrupt enough to choose by fair and honest votes, such a blot upon humanity as Andrew Jackson,\u201d Lydia Maria Child wrote to her new mother-in-law in the early months after Jackson\u2019s election in 1828 … She did not contest the election: the votes had been \u201cfair and honest.\u201d Why, then, did she call her fellow citizens \u201ccorrupt\u201d?<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From July 2017<\/p>\n

\"\"

John Ashbery, Eleven Collages<\/em><\/a>.<\/em> From issue. no 188 (Spring 2009).<\/p><\/div>\n

THE DAILY<\/small>
\nJoan Quigley, Ronald Reagan’s Guide to the Stars<\/a>
\nJessica Weisberg<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cVirtually every major move and decision the Reagans made during my time as White House Chief of Staff was cleared in advance with this woman in San Francisco who drew up horoscopes to make certain that the planets were in a favorable alignment for the enterprise,\u201d writes Don Regan, President Reagan\u2019s chief of staff, in his memoir,\u00a0For the Record<\/em>. Regan kept a color-coded calendar on his desk, with \u201cgood\u201d days highlighted in green and \u201cbad\u201d days highlighted in red. Here\u2019s the calendar for the first few months of 1986:<\/p>\n

Jan 16\u201323 very bad
\nJan 20 nothing outside the WH\u2014possible attempt
\nFeb 20\u201326 be careful
\nMarch 7\u201314 bad period
\nMarch 10\u201314 no outside activity
\nMarch 16 very bad
\nMarch 21 no
\nMarch 27 no
\nMarch 12\u201319 no trips exposure
\nMarch 19\u201325 no public exposure
\nApril 1 careful
\nApril 11 careful
\nApril 17 careful
\nApril 21\u201328 stay home<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

From June 2018<\/p>\n

INTERVIEW<\/small>
\nThe Art of Fiction No. 7<\/span><\/a>
\nJoyce Cary<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Are the political aspects of your work controlled by the same ideas?<\/span><\/p>\n

CARY<\/span><\/p>\n

Religion is organized to satisfy and guide the soul\u2014politics does the same thing for the body. Of course they overlap\u2014this is a very rough description. But the politician is responsible for law, for physical security, and in a world of tumult, of perpetual conflict, he has the alternatives, roughly again, of persuading people or shooting them. In the democracies, we persuade. And this gives great power to the spellbinder, the artist in words, the preacher, the demagogue, whatever you call him. Rousseau, Marx, Tolstoy, these were great spellbinders\u2014as well as Lacordaire. My Nimmo is a typical spellbinder. Bonser was a spellbinder in business, the man of imagination. He was also a crook, but so are many spellbinders. Poets have started most of the revolutions, especially nationalist revolutions. On the other hand, life would die without poets, and democracy must have its spellbinders.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From issue no. 7 (Fall\u2013Winter 1954\u20131955)<\/span><\/p>\n

THE DAILY<\/small>
\nA Number of Reasons I’ve Been Depressed Lately<\/span><\/a>
\nDavid Sedaris<\/em><\/p>\n

On Inauguration Day, I am in Seattle. Late in the afternoon, my old friend Lyn sends me a photo of an anti-Trump sticker someone found in Japan. It\u2019s cleverly designed: three peaks that on second glance turn out to be Trump sandwiched between two Klansmen. I want to write back and say, Ha, but instead, as a joke, I respond, \u201cDear Lyn, I\u2019m sorry you\u2019re so opposed to change, or too small-minded to move past your narrow assumptions. In the future, I\u2019d appreciate your keeping things like this to yourself. David\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A minute later, I send a follow-up email that says, \u201cJust kidding.\u201d And it bounces back, as do the next three emails I send. She\u2019s blocked me!<\/em> I realize. After thirty-eight years of friendship!<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From June 2017<\/p>\n

INTERVIEW
\n<\/small><\/small>The Art of Poetry No. 102<\/a>
\nClaudia Rankine<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

RANKINE<\/p>\n

The relationship between public engagement and private thought are inseparable for me. I worked on\u00a0Citizen<\/em>\u00a0on and off for almost ten years. I wrote the first piece in response to Hurricane Katrina. I was profoundly moved by the events in New Orleans as they unfolded. John and I taped the CNN coverage of the storm without any real sense of what we intended to do with the material. I didn\u2019t think, obviously, that I was working on\u00a0Citizen<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But for me, there is no push and pull. There\u2019s no private world that doesn\u2019t include the dynamics of my political and social world. When I am working privately, my process includes a sense of what is happening in the world. Today, for example, I feel incredibly drained. And probably you do, too.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From issue no. 219 (Winter 2016)<\/p>\n

ART<\/small>
\nAmazing But True<\/a>
\nJoe Brainard<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From issue no. 53 (Winter 1972)<\/p>\n

POETRY<\/small>
\nBangor<\/a>
\nTimothy Donnelly<\/em><\/p>\n

Poor Aunt Midge, who: 1. refused to change
\nhowever times did; 2. spread a) expansive memories
\nthrough Maine and b) jarred orange marmalade on scones;
\nhaving lived: 3. equally for a) pearls and b) perms,
\nand 4. beside the phone, one longish life led out in Bangor,
\none brain gone stale as loaves of store-bought bread,<\/p>\n

has died. December twenty-four and \u201cshe is dead\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From issue no. 153 (Winter 1999)<\/p>\n

INTERVIEW<\/small>
\nThe Art of Biography No. 5<\/span><\/a>
\nRobert Caro<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

CARO<\/p>\n

I thought, There\u2019s one guy who\u2019s with Lyndon Johnson most of the day, and it\u2019s not his campaign manager, it\u2019s his chauffeur! Because in the Texas Hill Country, a lot of anything is driving\u2014that\u2019s ninety percent of the time. His chauffeur was a guy named Carroll Keach. He lived in some place outside Corpus Christi, and it was hard to get to. It was, like, a 180-mile drive or something. But I kept going back to him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t a loquacious Texan, he was a laconic Texan. I would ask, What was Johnson doing between campaign stops? And he would say something like, Oh, he was just sitting there in the backseat. I just had to keep asking him questions. I mean, you\u2019re driving, Carroll, and Lyndon Johnson is in the backseat? What was he doing in the backseat? Finally, he told me that Johnson often would be talking to himself. So I\u2019d call and say, Carroll, when you said he was talking to himself, what was he saying? Finally, Carroll told me, It was like he was having discussions with himself about whether he had had a successful day, and if he had made a good impression on voters or not \u2026 Johnson would say, Boy, wasn\u2019t that dumb! You know you just lost that ballot box. You lost it, and you need it. And he would talk out\u2014rehearse, over and over, out loud, what he would say to the voters in that precinct the next time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From issue no. 2016 (Spring 2016)
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

THE DAILY
\n<\/small>Texas Forever<\/span><\/a>
\nAdam Wilson<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

I\u2019m a Reagan baby, a product of recession, later reared in the economically secure Clinton nineties, in a McMansioned suburb of the Eastern Seaboard. Our athletes\u2014statuesque Celtics and sinewy Red Sox\u2014were billboarded, televised, and extra-life-sized for us to admire as we turned into populist fist-pumpers in the soft reflection of our screens.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

From July 2011<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

INTERVIEW<\/small>
\nThe Art of Theater No. 2<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/a>Arthur Miller<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

I always drew a lot of inspiration from politics, from one or another kind of national struggle. You live in the world even though you only vote once in a while. It determines the extensions of your personality. I lived through the McCarthy time, when one saw personalities shifting and changing before one\u2019s eyes, as a direct, obvious result of a political situation. And had it gone on, we would have gotten a whole new American personality\u2014which in part we have \u2026 Such a pall of fright was laid upon us that it truly deflected the American mind. It\u2019s part of a paranoia which we haven\u2019t escaped yet. Good God, people still give their lives for it; look what we\u2019re doing in the Pacific.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From issue no. 38 (Summer 1966)<\/span><\/p>\n

INTERVIEW<\/small>
\nThe Art of Fiction No. 236<\/span><\/a>
\nAli Smith<\/em><\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/span><\/p>\n

Are you a nationalist?<\/span><\/p>\n

SMITH<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From issue no. 221 (Summer 2017)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

POETRY<\/small>
\nLetter from Kitty Dukakis: Between the Election and the Breakdown<\/a>
\nRick Adang<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

They called it a landslide as though<\/span>
\n<\/span>everything shifted and the weak<\/span>
\n<\/span>and strong alike were buried alive.<\/span>
\n<\/span>Not true. We simply came home.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From issue no. 130 (Spring 1994)<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A selection of Election Day reading from The Paris Review archive. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31006],"tags":[16304,9147,67827,68975,9123],"class_list":["post-176000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-redux","tag-archive","tag-elections","tag-featured","tag-midterms","tag-voting"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCampaign Literature: Election Day 2026<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A selection of midterms-related writing from The Paris Review archive.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/11\/03\/campaign-literature-election-day-midterms\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" 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