The news cycle is moving at a dizzying pace. Strap in

Remember when Donald Trump faced an assassination attempt on Saturday? That was a moment of historic importance, yet here we are, two days later, and doesn’t it already feel like old news? 

Once upon a time, the news cycle arrived one day at a time, reflected in the headlines of the next morning’s newspapers. Back then, afternoon dailies might scoop their morning counterparts on occasion, but really, it was all about the next day. 

Then radio news programs came into their own during World War II, speeding up the news cycle, only for radio to wane in importance as TV and the nightly news became a scoop monster.

Then came cable news. In 1980, CNN became the first 24-hour all-news network. The news cycle started to match that pace as anchors updated current events at the top of the hour. 

Then the internet. With the ability to instantly publish stories to a worldwide audience, the news cycle could change by the minute. And the advent of blogs forced newspapers online, to compete on that schedule. 

Social media didn’t just reinforce that schedule but also broadened the scope of what “breaking news” was. Once social media sites became popular, new political movements and information ecosystems emerged, focusing on any range of topics—social justice, the law, Taylor Swift, and even the QAnon fever swamps. If you can believe it, it isn’t hard to find corners on TikTok that laud Osama bin Laden as an anti-imperialist hero. There are now news spheres hidden from most of the world, algorithmically driven to appear only to those most receptive to the message. 

So what does all that mean? 

It means that we had a history-changing event happen on Saturday—the assassination attempt of a former president and current presidential aspirant—and that news of it rightly dominated all media on Sunday, but that now, on Monday, other stories have displaced it. This morning, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the federal classified-documents case against Trump. And then, a few hours later, that story was bumped aside as the Republican National Convention started in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Trump announced that he chose Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate. News from the RNC, covering both standard things (like the vice-presidential pick) as well as the inevitable craziness sure to erupt on the convention floor, will further dull this past weekend’s news from our collective memory. 

That’s not to say the assassination attempt will be forgotten. God knows Republicans will harp on it, continuing their absurd efforts to pin the attack on Democrats, despite the attacker being a registered Republican and using an assault rifle that Republicans (including Trump) have fought tooth and nail to keep legal. 

And across the aisle, Democratic attempts to push President Joe Biden out of the race haven’t ceased. 

But the broader zeitgeist seems to have already moved past the assassination attempt. So don’t listen to anyone who says this or that single event has permanently and sweepingly changed the dynamics of the race. The news cycle moves at a dizzying pace, making it nearly impossible for any one event—even Biden’s disastrous debate performance—to significantly alter the race. 

We are in unprecedented times, in an unprecedented media environment. Strap in. 

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