Editor’s Note: The Atlantic is making vital coverage of the coronavirus available to all readers. Find the collection here. The United States is now in what disaster-preparedness experts once modeled as a worst-case scenario. We are flooded with a highly transmissible virus that causes unpredictable symptoms: sometimes mild, sometimes fatal. The curve is not flat, or even a curve. It’s almost a line that points straight upward.

Every weekday evening, our editors guide you through the biggest stories of the day, help you discover new ideas, and surprise you with moments of delight. Subscribe to get this delivered to your inbox.Jordan Casteel. Photo of painting: David SchulzeBarack Obama is somehow still hopeful.The former president acknowledges the very real threats to democracy in this moment. But he urges Americans to take the long view and, within the time they have, work to make things better.

Lorenzo Meloni / MagnumIn the aftermath of the electoral defeat of Donald Trump, who has inflicted so much gratuitous harm on the United States—including making unfounded accusations of election fraud and declaring himself the victor, a malicious lie that is undermining the integrity of American democracy—there is an understandable temptation among those on the winning side to seek revenge and settle scores with Trump and Trumpworld.

The Atlantic has hired Caitlin Dickerson as a staff writer, editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg announced today. Dickerson will write about immigration and the American experience, and begins with The Atlantic in January. She joins from The New York Times, where she has been a national immigration reporter since 2016.In a note to the newsroom announcing the hire, Goldberg wrote: “Caitlin is an indefatigable reporter with a deep magazine sensibility and great moral purpose.

For the past three presidential elections, New York’s Twenty-First Congressional District—a humongous swath of rural, mountainous territory known as the North Country that’s closer to Canada than to the Big Apple—has voted along with the nation: Its constituents backed Barack Obama twice before flipping to Donald Trump in 2016.