It’s Election Week. Brace Yourselves

November 5, 2024:

When WIRED launched a politics vertical in January of this year, our decision wasn’t without critics. WIRED is best known, after all, as a “technology publication,” a place that can help you understand the changing landscape of consumer products and technological innovation; one that goes deep on TikTok trends and champions sustainability. We’re somewhere audiences can nerd out over new phones, new memes, new heat pumps. You guys love heat pumps.

At the time, though, our decision was firm and our logic was simple: You just can’t unravel technology or science or online culture from politics anymore. We grounded the launch of WIRED Politics in plenty of potential intersections we saw playing out in the year ahead. There was the potential for generative AI to disrupt campaigns and elections, as well as the ongoing influence of disinformation campaigns, and the certainty that we’d see more foreign meddling and hacking exploits like the DNC’s 2015 and 2016 hacks. Not to mention the steady rise of online pundits and influencers, on platforms like Twitch and TikTok, whose voices mattered more to many voters than those of TV hosts or newspaper editorial boards.

Ultimately, all of those factors played important roles in this year’s global elections and have been notable to the US presidential race. But at WIRED, tech and politics proved even more interwoven than even we’d expected: Look at the disturbing far-right pivot of some in Silicon Valley’s elite ranks, most notably Elon Musk, who has turned his X account into a megaphone for Donald Trump and opened his vast coffers to move the election in Trump’s favor; consider the devastating implications of Project 2025, a GOP-linked policy blueprint for a second Trump presidency, on everything from climate change to our children’s education; and take note of just how unprecedented both campaigns were in their embrace of influencers and alternative online media to capture potential voters.

And now, well, here we are. In the coming days (maybe weeks, hopefully not months), a profoundly polarized country will eke out a decision. The United States will choose its future; one that roughly half this country is almost sure to disavow. If you read WIRED with any consistency, our politics are probably crystal clear to you: A better future, for us, is grounded first and foremost in respect for people—all of them. That means upholding our democratic institutions; it means making an unwavering commitment to human rights and bodily autonomy; and it means recognizing that (no shit!) climate change is an existential emergency. Securing a better future also requires starting from a shared understanding of the present—a framework of reality, of what’s true and what isn’t. It’s something that Donald Trump, the GOP, and the throng of conspiratorial, racist, dangerous enablers who surround them have completely lost touch of, putting this country’s future at great risk.

In other words, we’re voting for Kamala Harris. The alternative is a future too abhorrent for even the most dystopian imaginations at WIRED to contemplate.

As for this week: WIRED reporters will be fanned out across the country and covering the election across our digital platforms, including on Instagram and TikTok. David Gilbert will be reporting from the Sun Belt swing states of Arizona and Nevada; Vittoria Elliott will be traveling across Pennsylvania, while Tim Marchman covers the crucial southeastern corner of the state; and Makena Kelly will go where the influencers are—figuratively and literally. Starting today, you can follow WIRED’s election coverage on our liveblog, where we’ll be tracking propaganda, election conspiracy theories, what the major players in tech are doing and saying, and what our reporters are seeing and hearing.

Whatever the outcome, WIRED will continue to boldly and fearlessly cover the future as it unspools before all of us—and hold the creators of that future, including our political leaders and governmental institutions, to account. So take the time to vote if you haven’t already, take a few deep breaths if you’ve been holding yours, and together, let’s step into whatever comes next.

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