By Peter Isackson

In one month, the United States will undergo another one of its regularly programmed national psychodramas: a presidential election. It’s a mix of three p’s: personality, policy and power, with a strong emphasis on personality as the key to defining power. Focused on emotions alone, very few people appreciate the profound effect a presidential campaign can have on the fostering of literary creativity, and specifically the art of fiction.

The idea of electing a new “commander in chief” who will be the “leader of the free world” lifts people out of their boring routine. The actual political effect of the choice between a Democrat and Republican has never been clearly established. But because the emotional stakes are so high, the media have come to characterize every presidential election as existential. If the wrong candidate wins, democracy will disappear.

Along with the fabricated drama of existential stakes, every presidential campaign brings with it a great leap forward in the art of fiction. We used to wonder who might write “the great American novel,” a term so consecrated that it even merits an acronym: GAN. But of course, not many people have time to read novels these days, especially not “great” ones.

Who needs well-crafted literary masterpieces when the most compelling, thunderously suspenseful fiction appears regularly every four years in the drama of a presidential election? Whether its Haitian immigrants purloining pets and serving them for dinner or proclaiming a decade of unmitigated joy, election campaigns extend the range of the substitute for reality we call hyperreality.

Among the plethora of examples, let us consider a US presidential candidate’s foray into historical fiction. Here is how The New York Times summed up the plot of Harris’s historical novel:

“The most important moments in our history have come when we stood up to aggressors like Putin,” Ms. Harris said, warning that the Russian leader would not stop with Ukraine, and would possibly even look into encroaching on NATO territory, if he succeeds in his campaign.”

“History is so clear in reminding us, the United States cannot and should not isolate ourselves from the rest of the world. Isolation is not insulation.”

Today’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

In contemporary American English, the undesirable result of any policy........

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