THESE EIGHT days in American politics spanned an eon. On July 13th the bullet of a would-be assassin came an inch from killing Donald Trump, the former president, just days before the Republican Party formally nominated him as their candidate for the 2024 presidential election. On July 21st, Joe Biden, the incumbent president, announced that he would abandon his re-election bid less than one month before the Democratic Party convention was due to begin. The period began with the near-death of one candidate—and concluded with the end of his nemesis’s political career.