Volume 5, Issue 44: Long Term Parking

"It's not too late to have a future, Ade."

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I run the New York Marathon tomorrow, Sunday, November 3. I begin at 9:10 a.m ET. You can track me, in real time, right here. Let’s see how this goes.

One of the things I love the most about sports is how you can watch history be altered, and forever shifted, in real time. Because anything can happen, at any time, because things are occuring so quickly, with so many different variables, with so many highly motivated participants, it is impossible to predict what is going to happen next. The minute that something does happen, we are shocked and delighted to be witnesses to it; we leap, or scream, or pump our fist, or high five the person next to us—we have an immediate, visceral reaction of surprise, of understanding that the world has just changed in front of our eyes.

But what happens next is the important part: We instantly, without even thinking about it, reassemble our reality to fit what we just saw. The thunderous unlikelihood of a real-time occurrence transforms itself into history instantaneously. It blows your mind when it happens. But then it just becomes a thing that happened.

One of the most famous moments in baseball history came when, in the 1988 World Series, Dodgers outfielder Kirk Gibson, whose hamstring and knee were in such bad shape that the team kept him out of the lineup for Game One against the A’s even though he was the best hitter in baseball that year, hit a walkoff home run off previously impenetrable Oakland closer Dennis Eckersley. The home run was so improbable, so out of nowhere, that it led to broadcaster Jack Buck’s legendary (and second-greatest of his career) call of “I don’t believe what I just saw.”

But by the time Gibson crossed home plate, we did believe it. We had, after all, just seen it. And because we had just seen it, and it because it was so shocking, it went, in a matter of three seconds, from “thing that couldn’t possibly happen” to “foundational moment cemented in history.” It happened like that. When we look back at it now, it feels inevitable, like everything leading to that at-bat was setting up Gibson hitting a homer the whole time. But we only think that because the homer actually happened. The world is an entirely different place if he doesn’t hit it, for everyone involved and everyone watching, in some ways small and some ways massive. But he did hit it. So we live in the world where he did. For the rest of our lives.

This of course is exactly what happens throughout those lives, all day, every day. They can be huge, life-changing events—births, deaths, weddings, divorces, graduations, all of it. But most are much smaller and much more common. One of the greatest things about being alive is that your world is always a little bit different when you go to sleep than it was when you woke up. You learned something, you affected someone, you changed, a person said something to you make you feel adjust one small little aspect of what you thought about your life, or theirs. Even the most banal days have this. I’ve always tried to remember that: Everything is static, we are always colliding with those around us, that there is so much always to be learned, to be tried, to be experienced. The world is constantly shifting all around us. That is, in its most foundational form, what life is.

This change can become more disorienting as you get older. It’s why what someone (that guy again, sorry) called “golden age thinking” is so powerful to people, what he called “the erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one one's living in, a flaw in the romantic imagination of those people who find it difficult to cope with the present.” As the world changes, it becomes more confusing the more time a person has spent in the world the way it was before, and thus many react to that confusion with hostility and an insistence that this change is inherently bad—a demand that the world should return to the way it was back when they understood it better. But, of course, in 10 years, when there are even more changes and more disorientation, they’ll look back at now, this moment, as somehow an improvement on whatever is going on then. That’s just what life is. (I of course not immune to this, as you might note from all the ‘90s songs that keep showing up on this newsletter’s playlist.) This is why children are so wonderfully malleable, why they’re able to absorb so much information and just sort of roll with it, why they’re always moving forward rather than looking back. They are constantly seeing things they’ve never seen before. They can live in the present.

I try my best to do the same, with varying levels of success. The world will be different tomorrow than it is today. There’s nothing you can do about it. It simply is.

Your only option, then, is to adjust. Or, at the very least, prepare.

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The world is going to change next week. I do not know how it is going to change. Don’t believe anyone who claims they do. But it is going to change.

Everyone, regardless of their political leanings or rooting interest, seems to understand this on some level, that the result of Tuesday’s election is a pivot moment.

If Donald Trump wins, it will not only usher in truly dramatic changes in public policy and of the character of this nation, it will in fact be an endorsement of the chaos of the last decade—an acceleration, a steroidal leveling-up, of everything that has happened in American life since Trump came down that escalator in 2015. I find it difficult to argue that it will not cement those changes. It will simply be how we live, moving forward.

If Kamala Harris wins, it will be (for the third consecutive time, it should be said) a repudiation of that worldview, potentially, at last, an escape hatch from the vice grip Trump and Trumpism has had on us all for a decade. I know there are those who believe that Trump will be the forever head of the Republican Party, that he’ll run again in 2028, that we will never be rid of him. But, and I’ll put this gently here, watching that man speak should not inspire a lot of confidence that he’ll be able to make another charge up Hamburger Hill at the age of 82. If we are able to navigate what will no doubt be an ugly, often-terrifying transition period post-election, Harris will be sworn in, and, whatever one’s thoughts on her, she will have a chance to usher in a calmer period of American life simply by being a normal politician subject to the laws of gravity like the rest of us, rather than a relentless cult leader. (Biden briefly did this, but only briefly.) She may be a successful President, and she may not be, but she will be a normal President, in the way all Presidents have been—but one. We will face crises; the world is very scary right now. She will succeed at some things, and she will fail at others. Maybe she will win re-election in 2028, and maybe she won’t. But I do not see any way it does not, in the biggest, most important ways, turn the page on this era. It will be different. It will be how we live, moving forward.

Until the next change after that.

There is a whole industry of alternate histories out there, from what would have happened if the Nazis had won World War II? to what would have happened if JFK hadn’t been shot?, what would have happened if Hillary Clinton had won in 2016? But the reason alternate histories are always a little unsatisfying is that reality is so fluid, too random, too chaotic, to be captured in tidy narrative speculation. They’re not actual assessments of what might have gone down: They’re just wish fulfillment—comfort food. They are drawn from the same instinct that makes us believe the past was better than it was: The feeling that, had it all gone differently, our lives would have better than they are right now because right now feels so precarious. To quote from the same movie again: The present kind feels a little unsatisfying because life is kinda unsatisfying.

We do not know what the future will bring. I find a potential Trump era terrifying, and I find a potential Harris era to be a real opportunity to make a better world. This strikes me as obvious. But there are those who think the opposite. It strikes them as obvious too. I’m pretty sure I’m right about this. But none of us know what’s coming. We all can see, though, that the difference between one future and the other is dramatic—perhaps as dramatic as any two futures of my lifetime. It’s a Sliding Doors moment … about everything in the planet and everyone who lives on it. And it’s 50-50 either way. Heads, this. Tails, that.

It blows your mind when it happens. But then it just becomes a thing that happened. One reality, or the other. All you can do is sit and wait—and prepare. When I was younger, I did not imagine a world where one Presidential election could make such an overwhelming difference in my life and the lives of everyone I know. But I didn’t imagine a lot of things when I was younger. I adjusted anyway. When it is over whatever happens, we have adjust to whatever the world has become, what our life will now be. It is, after all, the only one we have.

Here is a numerical breakdown of all the things I wrote this week, in order of what I believe to be their quality.

1. What Tua’s Return Says About the NFL, NBC News. We don’t care, it’s fine, it’s probably time to stop pretending anyone cares.

2. Who Needs a Ring Most in 2024? MLB.com. When the World Series ends, there’s a lot of baseball stuff to write.

3. Was this the Yankees Best Chance? New York. Like this.

4. Questions for the Yankees in the Offseason, MLB.com. And this.

5. Your World Series Game Five Preview, MLB.com. And this.

6. Your World Series Game Four Preview, MLB.com. And this.

7. Your World Series Game Three Preview, MLB.com. And this.

PODCASTS

Grierson & Leitch, we reviewed “Conclave” and “Venom: The Last Dance,” and then had a big cleansing pre-election chat. We’re off this coming week.

Waitin’ Since Last Saturday, we previewed the Florida game.

Morning Lineup, I did Sunday, Monday and Thursday morning’s shows.

LONG STORY YOU SHOULD READ THIS MORNING … OF THE WEEK

Matt Norlander and Eamonn Brennan, all your college basketball goodness. Longtime readers know how obsessed I am with college basketball, particularly Illinois college basketball. The new season begins on Monday—I will be watching, post-marathon while soaked in ice in my hotel room—so I must recommend my two favorite college basketball writers: Matt Norlander of CBS Sports and Eamonn Brennan, formerly of ESPN now at his own venture on Substack. Know that I will read every word these two gentlemen read for the next five-plus months. You should as well.

Also, starting on Monday, I’ll be writing a semi-regular Illinois Basketball Power Rankings for IlliniBoard. I just can’t help myself sometimes.

ONGOING LETTER-WRITING PROJECT!

This is your reminder that if you write me a letter and put it in the mail, I will respond to it with a letter of my own, and send that letter right to you! It really happens! Hundreds of satisfied customers! (I’m sorry I’m so behind on these. But I am starting to catch up!)

Write me at:

Will Leitch
P.O. Box 48
Athens GA 30603

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO

“Skintight,” The Donnas. I think The Donnas have become my comfort music in times of strife! There are worse choices, I think. Also: I briefly forgot that Craig Kilborn used to have a talk show!

Remember to listen to The Official Will Leitch Newsletter Spotify Playlist, featuring every song ever mentioned in this section.

Also, now there is an Official The Time Has Come Spotify Playlist.

In this age of self-care, on Monday, the day after I run the New York Marathon and the day before the election, I will be by myself in New York City. I’m going to write a piece about the marathon for New York, then I’m going to my favorite movie theater in the city, then I’m going to go eat sushi, then I’m going to watch Illinois’ first basketball game (against EIU, no less). That will be a good day. Then I will go to sleep, and the next day I will fly home, and then it will all go down.

Another tradition around these parts: Making Electoral Maps predictions during Presidential elections. My 2020 map was kinda close? I got three states wrong: Florida, North Carolina and Georgia (I also seem to have forgotten back then about that split vote in Maine).

So, at the end, here is my official 2024 Electoral Map prediction:

So that should lead to everyone being very chill.

Be safe out there. I’ll see you on the other side.

Best,
Will