As the longest presidential election in modern memory continues to play out, with threats of legal challenges and protracted ballot counts, there’s one thing we can definitively say about the contest between Republican Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden: The contentious campaign is finally over. Here’s an A to Z look back at some key moments that defined the battle in 2020.
A is for the country’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and the attacks the president has levied against him, calling him a “disaster” and, most recently, threatening to fire him following the election.
B is for bleach, which President Donald Trump stopped just short of telling Americans to ingest in April as a coronavirus treatment, speculating to reporters that applying disinfectants or “very powerful light” inside the body, particularly the lungs, could be an effective way to eliminate COVID-19.
C is for COVID-19, specifically the case contracted by President Trump last month, which kept him off the campaign trail for 10 days and gave him more fodder for his claims that the virus is nothing to “be afraid of” and that Americans shouldn’t let it “take over" their lives.
D is for the drive-by visit President Trump paid the streets of Bethesda last month while he was supposed to be quarantined at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center for the coronavirus, forcing Secret Service agents to play chauffeur and put themselves at risk of getting sick.
E is for Election Day preparation like none other in our collective modern memory, with businesses across the country boarding up windows and hiring additional security in anticipation of post-vote violence.
F is for the damage a forklift did to a brick walkway from the 1930s at Fort McHenry, where Vice President Mike Pence chose to deliver his political address during the Republican National Convention in August, despite his boss’ repeated dismissals of Baltimore as an urban hellhole.
G is for George Floyd, the Black man whose suffocation death at the hands of a Minneapolis officer in May sparked nationwide protests over police brutality and unjust treatment of African Americans, putting law enforcement reform and the Black Lives Matter movement front and center in the 2020 election.
H is for the historic addition of Sen. Kamala Harris to Joe Biden’s ticket as his running mate, making her the first Black woman and first person of Indian descent to accept the Democratic vice presidential nomination.
I is for the impeachment acquittal the U.S. Senate granted President Trump in February on charges he obstructed Congress and abused his power. The release, which put the onus on General Election voters to make the ultimate decision about when Mr. Trump should leave office, was made after a cursory trial and head-in-the-sand refusal to hear from witnesses.
J is for trailblazing Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose death in September — less than two months before Election Day — opened the door for the Trump administration and Republican controlled U.S. Senate to replace her in a matter of weeks with Amy Coney Barrett, likely ensuring a conservative majority on the high court for many years to come.
K is for Kenosha, Wisconsin, where prosecutors say 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse freely walked around with an AR-15 rifle strapped to his chest before using it to kill two men protesting the police shooting of Black Kenosha resident Jacob Blake. President Trump defended the white teenager, who some conservatives have held up as a hero.
L is for the Lincoln Project’s smart media campaign to defeat Donald Trump. The political action committee led by veteran Republicans uses humor, wit and social media to point out the absurdity of 45′s presidency.
M is for the strategic use of the mute button during the second and final presidential debate, the threat of which seemed to be enough to keep President Trump from repeatedly interrupting and talking over his challenger, as he did during the first debate.
N is for the national emergency President Trump finally declared March 13 concerning the novel coronavirus, after initially downplaying the COVID-19 threat. Since then, more than 230,000 Americans have died from the disease.
O is for the Obama-Biden stock market performance beating the Trump-Pence version according to an analysis by Fortune, which showed an annualized return of 16.3% from Inauguration Day through Election Day during Barack Obama’s first term, and just 10.5% during President Trump’s.
P is for Proud Boys, the self-described group of “western chauvinists” with a fondness for white nationalist memes, who got a significant boost in legitimacy from President Donald Trump during the first debate this fall when he told them to “stand back and stand by” — presumably for the moment when they would be called to, as the president put it, “do something about antifa and the left.”
Q is for QAnon, the right-wing conspiracy theorists who irrationally believe President Trump is under attack from elite, leftist, Satan-worshipping pedophiles who control the mythical “deep state” government. When asked to disavow the group last month during a town hall, the president instead praised their stance against pedophilia.
R is for the in-person campaign rallies President Trump insisted on holding throughout the country as the coronavirus pandemic raged. Eighteen of the rallies, held from June 20 to Sept. 30, likely resulted in at least 30,000 COVID-19 infections and 700 additional deaths, according to a statistical model created by a group of economists at Stanford University.
S is for the South Carolina Democratic primary Mr. Biden won Feb. 29, signaling a shift in fortune for the former vice president, who had performed poorly in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. He would go on to sew up the Democratic nomination within a few weeks.
T is for the tear gas Mr. Trump authorized soldiers to use to disperse people protesting police brutality outside the White House this spring, so he could stroll across Lafayette Square for a photo shoot holding a bible in front of St. John’s Church.
U is for united, a state of being the United States can no longer claim.
V is for the video President Trump retweeted in June that shows an apparent Trump supporter in Florida yelling “white power” at protesters mocking him.
W is for Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who was the target of a right wing kidnapping plot based on her cautious approach to coronavirus safety, which President Trump has repeatedly criticized.
X is for xenophobia and the Trump administration’s decision, issued hours before the start of the 2021 fiscal year Oct. 1, to cap the number of refugees admitted to the United States at an all-time low of 15,000, claiming the move was to ensure proper vetting of individuals, though what it really did was further the president’s efforts to vilify immigrants.
Y is for the young people, who’ve taken to the streets in droves to demand reform in government and law enforcement. Let’s hope they also made it to the polls.
Z is for zero, the number that coronavirus cases were about to be, according to President Trump back in February. As of Monday, the seven-day average of new daily cases is more than 81,000 — the highest the country has yet seen.