On the morning of April 6, I was sitting in my doctor’s waiting room in Manhattan when I felt the earth move. Four days later, those of us working out of The Nation’s offices made our way to the roof of our building, where we put on our eclipse glasses to watch the moon’s shadow partially blot out the midday sun. Meanwhile, Israel—with American weapons and technology—carried on the carnage in Gaza, while Trump continued to delay any reckoning for his high crimes and misdemeanours. As Chris Lehmann details in this issue, Trump’s presidential campaign has quickly morphed from faux populism to full-blown messianism, with months to go before Election Day.

But amid the apocalyptic overtures, once you take off the dark glasses there are signs of renewal. Later this month, workers at the VW plant in Chattanooga will vote on whether to join the UAW. And this time, they not only have the vitality of Shawn Fain’s new leadership behind them but also the momentum of a rising union tide that has already seen workers at Mercedes-Benz in Alabama petition for an election. As Bryce Covert explains in our latest cover story, Tesla workers without such protections routinely face harassment and abuse.

Also in this issue, Michelle Alexander delivers a prophetic riff on Martin Luther King Jr’s radical relevance, while Gillian Slovo, who wrote the play Grenfell: In the Words of Survivors, offers some thoughts on public housing and private lives. Not to mention David Klion’s clinical dissection of the disaster that is Biden’s foreign policy (also a topic of Gaby del Valle’s review of Jonathan Blitzer’s history of the border crisis), Alana Pockros on Lauren Oyler and the rise of “Internet criticism,” Rachel Hunter Himes on Harlem modernism, Bijan Stephen on the return of rapper Kid Cudi, and Daniel Bessner on the latest and last season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. And of course, don’t miss our brilliant columnists, stunning illustrations, and a new addition to the magazine, “Rethinking Rural.” Thanks for reading. Springtime at last!

-D.D. Guttenplan

Editor. The Nation