Chris Crucial: 2024 is the 'anxiety election'

PLUS: Bolton for (Dick) Cheney!

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1. We are all nervous: I have been searching for a while now for a way to explain to the average person how to think about this election — in a way that appropriately summarizes the general mood of the country.

It’s common knowledge, for one, that a majority of Americans don’t like either Donald Trump or Joe Biden and would prefer someone else (or two someone else’s) be the major party nominees.

So, to that end, I toyed with the “Hold your nose election.”

It’s also a fact that we have two of the oldest people to ever seek the presidency running this fall.

So, I thought, maybe the “elderly election.” Or the “age election.” While those had the benefit of alliteration, I still didn’t think it captured the sentiment I heard from people — Democrats and Republicans — about their feelings on the race.

Then, today, a breakthrough — in the form of this New York Times piece, which asked voters to describe their feelings about the coming election in a single word. Here’s a chart on the most commonly-mentioned ones:

Which is really interesting to me. A majority of the top 10 are words that connote some level of stress or uncertainty or, yes, anxiety.

Again, alliteration matters. So, I christen thee the “Anxiety Election.”