By Victor D. Infante
I feel like I’ve been here before. Not here exactly – we haven’t really ever been here before – but this gnawing sense of existential despair, this utter feeling of bereavement. That’s familiar. I felt it the day after the 2000 election ended, when that country was plunged into an abyss of political uncertainty, from which George W. Bush emerged the winner. I was heartbroken. I was angry. I felt powerless. As a political science degree-wielding journalist, I had no idea how all the metrics I knew of analyzing the course of an election could be so wrong. As a human being, I couldn’t comprehend how anyone could vote for such a man. I don’t feel the need to reiterate all the reasons why I felt that way. They were pretty self-evident at the time.
My method of dealing, on that day, was to launch The November 3rd Club – first, as a closed email list for politically minded writers to commiserate and strategize. Then, it morphed into an online literary journal of political writing. Then, as times changed, I let go of its old identity and transformed it into Radius, the journal you’re reading now.
Times have changed again. Prince and David Bowie are gone, and Donald Trump is headed to the White House. I don’t feel the need to reiterate all the reasons why I despise the man, and why I’m severely disappointed in the country that elected him. No. You’ve heard that before, and I don’t feel the need to bore you with it again. Now it’s time to look for writers who are saying something new.
The rules have changed, and Radius will change with it. In the weeks to come, we’ll return from hiatus and resume our regular publishing schedule. Also in the weeks to come, we will begin a process of returning to our roots: Not abandoning anything we’ve done or been in the past few years, but remembering where we came from. We will be seeking out new voices and new features, re-examining everything we do and retrofitting the journal for the battles to come. And there will be battles to come. That’s about the only thing I can promise you in all certainty.
If you want to help in this next stage of our journey, you can contribute to help keep Radius going by donating online. You can also hang tight and watch for coming callouts for new columnists and editors. And most of all, you can keep reading. We’re only getting started.
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