2024 is a well-paced, thorough and often (darkly) humorous account of the two-year campaign season that began when Donald Trump announced he was running for president again ... I cannot say that I enjoyed reading this book. I often winced at the generous—at times, egregious—use of dramatic irony, and I was not terribly eager to relive the fateful twists and turns of the 2024 election, which so recently deposited us in our dismal present. But that’s hardly the authors’ fault ... There are also moments of levity ... For liberal is a book of what-might-have-beens. That makes for a punishing read. But if we refuse to look for lessons in this depressing book, we might just keep becoming our own worst enemies.

Written by three leading Washington political journalists, 2024 argues that the eventual result was decisive but far from inevitable. By speaking to insiders on all sides of the debate, it lifts the lid on the near misses, fatal errors and lucky saves that led to the situation today ... In the end, 2024 is less a blow-by-blow account of a campaign than a dissection of the fragile political system that gave Trump a path back to power ... The story that comes through from this book isn’t just that the Democrats lost to Trump again—but that they still haven’t figured out how to beat what comes next.

In 2024, we get retreads of those familiar what-ifs ... And yet instead of explaining the backstory of such what-ifs, mostly we only get useless details— ones that seemingly signal just how many people these award-winning journalists have spoken to, rather than providing any real insight ... Without such necessary context, the book also misses opportunities to clear up misinformation ... Some of the book’s revelations have also been broken already, by other books in this relentless genre. Details about the efforts to hide Biden’s decline in health will be wearingly familiar to readers of Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper’s Original Sin, which made headlines in May and does a more substantial job of reporting on the election. But there’s little new on that cover-up here. The book is cluttered with such filler ... But the skimpiness of context most shows through with the authors’ account of October 7. The authors are, impressively, the first to take the war’s effect on the election seriously. Gaza was never a marginal issue, as some like to claim—and the authors convincingly argue how it affected the Democrats’ ability to recruit grassroots volunteers and to motivate the reluctant youth vote ... But they leave the war as a problem that rocked the campaign rather than analyse responses to it ... That lack of analysis means the subtitle—How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America—vastly over-promises. I’m not sure the authors know. With little analysis and scattered attention, the reading experience of 2024 resembles that of scrolling through headlines, opinion pieces and faulty polling. It wasn’t a fun experience last year, and I can’t say I would recommend it here either.

With deep reporting and strong analysis, this might emerge as the definitive title on a hugely consequential election ... This isn’t the first behind-the-scenes look at the recent presidential race, but it’s among the sturdiest, a well-sourced, process-oriented account that shows how inertia and missed opportunities deflated the Democrats ... The authors find little new to write about Trump, retelling how criminal indictments and assassination attempts worked to his advantage and describing his staunchest supporters’ belief that God is looking out for him. But this is an excusable shortcoming in a substantive effort that’s ideal for readers reluctant to read multiple books on the subject.