Joe Biden’s announcement today that he is running for president in 2024 is at once entirely predictable and exceptionally improbable.

In a video released early this morning, the president formally announced his reelection bid, seeking to swipe a traditional Republican theme—freedom—for his own campaign.

“That’s been the work of my first term: to fight for our democracy, to protect our rights,” Biden says. “To make sure that everyone in this country is treated equally, that everyone is given a fair shot.”

But he accuses “MAGA extremists” of seeking to cut Social Security (true of many Republicans, though not of Donald Trump), prohibit abortion, make voting harder, and ban books.

“The question we’re facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom. More rights or fewer,” Biden says. “I know what I want the answer to be, and I think you do too. This is not a time to be complacent.”

The video is classic Bidenalia: aviators and hugs, snapshots of union workers and of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. “This is our moment,” he says. “Let’s finish this job.”

If this is Biden’s moment, it’s not one that many people saw coming just a few years ago. The announcement is predictable because Biden has been signaling that he would run for a second term for years now—a signal that many people took to be a feint at first, but that most had gradually come to believe was real. And it’s predictable because an incumbent president with a robust list of accomplishments and no serious primary challengers (sorry, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) is all but certain to try for four more years.

Yet for a long time, the very idea that Biden would ever be president seemed dubious, despite his long-standing desire to hold the office. He failed in 1988 and 2008, and reluctantly passed on running in 2016. Right up until the February 29, 2020, South Carolina Democratic primary (how’s that date for improbable?), what everyone thought was Biden’s final attempt also seemed destined for failure. Then he turned things around, cruising through the Democratic field. That spring and summer was a tumultuous time in the United States, when much of normal life shut down because of COVID and widespread unrest over police violence occurred. By November, Biden was the favorite to beat Trump—which he did, though not by as much as some polls predicted—and then he finally attained his lifelong goal.

Even after Biden took office, doubts persisted that he’d try for a second term. He is already the oldest president in American history, and at times his age has shown. His presidency has seen some hiccups—most notably, inflation and the disastrous end to the American occupation of Afghanistan. But Biden has also assembled a record of achievement that rivals or exceeds the first term of any Democratic president for decades, and far surpasses what most people expected. (Biden has long profited from beating low expectations.)

Another reason for doubts about a Biden reprise was that he is not especially popular. Although his numbers have rebounded somewhat, he remains underwater. Yet Biden has managed to maintain the coalition that put him in office, in part because revulsion over the January 6 insurrection and the ongoing threat of another Trump presidency have kept it together. He’s also fended off any primary challenge from the party mainstream. In doing this, he benefits from structural advantages of the presidency; from co-opting likely challengers, such as Vice President Kamala Harris and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg; and from what I’ve called the catch-24: He has made clear he’ll run unless he thinks another moderate can beat Trump if he’s the GOP nominee, but no moderate will run as long as Biden is running.

During the 2020 primary, Biden tried to neutralize concerns about his age as well as his station as a vestige of the Democratic Party’s past by presenting himself as a transitional figure. “Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else,” he said. “There’s an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country.”

With today’s announcement, we now see that the bridge is longer than it might have seemed at the time. One question is what Biden’s persistence means for members of the generation he mentioned. Does he stifle them and the chance at a new Democratic Party by running again? Or does he allow more time for a stronger bench to develop? Harris and Buttigieg have arguably seen their stars tarnished—or at least not burnished—by their service in the Biden administration.

Extra time could give either of them the chance to improve their public profile, or to self-sabotage. It could also allow other Democrats, perhaps Governors Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan or Gavin Newsom of California, to prepare for the national stage. If Biden is able to win reelection, expect questions about whether he will be able to serve another four years—or move aside in favor of his vice president before the 2028 election. But before then, a long and likely rough campaign is ahead.

This cheat sheet tracks who’s in, out, up, and down in the 2024 races. It will be updated as the campaign develops, so check in regularly.

DEMOCRATS (Joshua Roberts / Getty) Joe Biden

Who is he?
After decades of trying, Biden is the president of the United States.

Is he running?
Yes. Biden formally announced his run on April 25.

Why does he want to run?
Biden’s slogan is apparently “Let’s finish the job.” He centered his launch video on the theme of freedom, but underlying all of this is his apparent belief that he may be the only person who can defeat Donald Trump in a head-to-head matchup.

[Mark Leibovich: The case for a primary challenge to Joe Biden]

Who wants him to run?
There’s the catch. Some prominent Democrats support his bid for a second term, but voters have consistently told pollsters they don’t want him to run again.

Can he win the nomination?
Barring unforeseen catastrophe, yes. No incumbent president has lost the nomination in the modern era, and Biden has pushed through changes to the Democratic-primary process that make him an even more prohibitive favorite.

What else do we know?
Biden is already the oldest person elected president and to serve as president, so a second term would set more records.

(Chip Somodevilla / Getty) Kamala Harris

Who is she?
Harris is the vice president of the United States.

Is she running?
No, but if Biden were to bow out, she’d be the immediate favorite.

Why does she want to run?
One problem with her 2020 presidential campaign was the lack of a clear answer to this question. Perhaps running on the Biden-Harris legacy would help fill in the blank.

Who wants her to run?
Some Democrats are excited about the prospect of nominating a woman of color, but generally Harris’s struggles as a candidate and in defining a role for herself (in the admittedly impossible position of VP) have resulted in nervousness about her as a standard-bearer.

Can she win the nomination?
Not right now.

(Matthew Cavanaugh / Getty) Pete Buttigieg

Who is he?
Mayor Pete is Secretary Pete now, overseeing the Department of Transportation.

Is he running?
No, but he would also be a likely candidate if Biden stepped away.

Why does he want to run?
Just as he was four years ago, Buttigieg is a young, ambitious politician with a moderate, technocratic vision of government.

Who wants him to run?
Buttigieg’s fans are passionate, and Biden showed that moderates remain a force in the party.

Can he win the nomination?
Not at this moment.

(Scott Olson / Getty) Bernie Sanders

Who is he?
The senator from Vermont is changeless, ageless, ever the same.

Is he running?
No, but if Biden dropped out, it’s hard to believe he wouldn’t seriously consider another go. A top adviser even says so.

Why does he want to run?
Sanders still wants to tax billionaires, level the economic playing field, and push a left-wing platform.

Who wants him to run?
Sanders continues to have the strong support of a large portion of the Democratic electorate, especially younger voters.

Can he win the nomination?
Two consecutive tries have shown that he’s formidable, but can’t close. Maybe the third time’s the charm?

(Chip Somodevilla / Getty) Gretchen Whitmer

Who is she?
Whitmer cruised to a second term as governor of Michigan in 2022.

Is she running?
No.

Why does she want to run?
It’s a little early to know, but her reelection campaign focused on abortion rights.

Who wants her to run?
Whitmer would check a lot of boxes for Democrats. She’s a fresh face, she’s a woman, and she’s proved she can win in the upper Midwest against a MAGA candidate.

Can she win the nomination?
Not if she isn’t running.

(Lucas Jackson / Reuters) Marianne Williamson

Who is she?
If you don’t know Williamson from her popular writing on spirituality, then you surely remember her somewhat woo-woo Democratic bid in 2020.

Is she running?
Yes. Williamson announced her campaign on March 4 in D.C.

Why does she want to run?
“It is our job to create a vision of justice and love that is so powerful that it will override the forces of hatred and injustice and fear,” she said at her campaign launch. She has also said that she wants to give voters a choice. “The question I ask myself is not ‘What is my path to victory?’ My question is ‘What is my path to radical truth-telling?’ There are some things that need to be said in this country.”

Who wants her to run?
Williamson has her fans, but she doesn’t have a clear political constituency.

Can she win the nomination?
Nah.

(Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune / Getty) J. B. Pritzker

Who is he?
The governor of Illinois is both a scion of a wealthy family and a “nomadic warrior.”

Is he running?
No.

Why does he want to run?
After years of unfulfilled interest in elected office, Pritzker has established himself as a muscular proponent of progressivism in a Democratic stronghold.

Who wants him to run?
Improbably for a billionaire, Pritzker has become a darling of the Sanders-style left, as well as a memelord.

Can he win the nomination?
Not now.

(Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune / Getty) Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Who is he?
The son of a presidential candidate, the nephew of another, and the nephew of a president, Kennedy is a longtime environmental activist and also a chronic crank.

Is he running?
Yes. He announced his run on April 19.

Why does he want to run?
Running for president is a family tradition—hell, he wouldn’t even be the first Kennedy to primary a sitting Democrat. You can expect a campaign arranged around his esoteric combination of left-wing interests (the environment, drug prices) and right-wing causes (vaccine skepticism, anger about social-media “deplatforming”).

Who wants him to run?
Who knows? One report says Steve Bannon encouraged his run in order to stoke chaos, which checks out. Kennedy’s wife, the actor Cheryl Hines—with whom he has clashed over vaccines—is at least willing to tolerate it. “I’ve passed the biggest hurdle, which is my wife has green-lighted it,” Kennedy said.

Can he win the nomination?
No.

REPUBLICANS (Joe Raedle / Getty) Donald Trump

Who is he?
You know him and you love him. Or hate him. Probably not much in between.

Is he running?
Yes. Trump announced his bid to return to the White House at Mar-a-Lago in November 2022.

Why does he want to run?
Revenge, boredom, rivalry, fear of prosecution, long-standing psychological hang-ups.

[Elaine Godfrey: Trump begins the ‘retribution’ tour]

Who wants him to run?
A big tranche of the GOP is still all in on Trump, but it’s a little hard to tell how big. Polling shows that his support among Republicans is all over the place, but he’s clearly not a prohibitive front-runner.

Can he win the nomination?
Yes, but past results are no guarantee of future success.

What else do we know?
More than we could possibly want to.

(Joe Raedle / Getty) Ron DeSantis

Who is he?
The second-term governor of Florida, DeSantis was previously a U.S. representative.

Is he running?
Not officially, but clearly the answer is yes. DeSantis is getting a campaign and super PAC up and running, marshaling donors, and inserting himself into national politics. He reportedly might not announce until May or June.

Why does he want to run?
DeSantis offers the prospect of a synthesis of Trump-style culture war and bullying and the conservative politics of the early-2010s Republican Party.

Who wants him to run?
Members of the Republican establishment who want a pugilistic alternative to Trump, disaffected MAGA types, and maybe Jeb!

[From the March 2023 issue: How did America’s weirdest, most freedom-obsessed state fall for an authoritarian governor?]

Can he win the nomination?
No one quite knows how a Trump-DeSantis battle will play out, but it seems very possible.

(Roy Rochlin / Getty) Nikki Haley

Who is she?
Haley, the daughter of immigrants, was governor of South Carolina and then ambassador to the United Nations under Trump.

Is she running?
Yes. She announced her campaign on February 14, saying, “Time for a new generation.”

Why does she want to run?
Perhaps as a MAGA-friendly alternative to Trump? It’s hard to say, as my colleague Tim Alberta has chronicled. Haley served under Trump, condemned him over January 6, said she wouldn’t run if he ran, and now is running anyway.

[Sarah Isgur: What Nikki Haley can learn from Carly Fiorina]

Who wants her to run?
That’s also hard to say, but if DeSantis stumbles in the spotlight, she could make a play for his supporters.

Can she win the nomination?
Dubious.

(Dylan Hollingsworth / Bloomberg / Getty) Vivek Ramaswamy

Who is he?
A 37-year-old biotech millionaire with a sparkling résumé (Harvard, then Yale Law, where he became friends with Senator J. D. Vance), Ramaswamy has recently become prominent as a crusader against “wokeism” and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing.

Is he running?
Yes. He announced his campaign on February 21.

Why does he want to run?
“We’re in the middle of a national identity crisis,” Ramaswamy said in a somewhat-hectoring launch video. “Faith, patriotism, and hard work have disappeared, only to be replaced by new secular religions like Covidism, climatism, and gender ideology.”

Who wants him to run?
As The New Yorker found in a long profile in December, he has some avid fans. So far, little evidence suggests this amounts to a winning coalition.

Can he win the nomination?
Almost certainly not. At this stage, Ramaswamy gives off Steve Forbes/Herman Cain/Morry Taylor vibes—an interesting character from the business world, but not a contender. Then again, Trump once did too.

(Alex Wong / Getty) Asa Hutchinson

Who is he?
Hutchinson, the formerly longtime member of Congress, just finished a stint as governor of Arkansas.

Is he running?
Yes. Hutchinson announced on April 2 that he is running. It would have been funnier to announce a day earlier, though.

Why does he want to run?
At one time, Hutchinson was a right-wing Republican—he was one of the managers of Bill Clinton’s impeachment—but as the party has changed, he finds himself closer to the center. He’s been very critical of Trump, saying that Trump disqualified himself with his attempts to steal the 2020 election. Hutchinson is also unique in the field for having called on Trump to drop out over his indictment in New York.

Who wants him to run?
Some old-school Republicans would welcome his candidacy, but it’s hard to imagine a groundswell.

Can he win the nomination?
Unlikely.

(Drew Angerer / Getty) Larry Hogan

Who is he?
Hogan left office this year after serving two terms as governor of Maryland.

Is he running?
No. After giving a campaign “very serious consideration,” Hogan ruled himself out on March 5, saying he was worried that too large a field would help Trump win the nomination once more.

Why did he want to run?
Hogan argued that his experience of governing a very blue state as a Republican is a model: “We’ve been really successful outside of Washington, where everything appears to be broken and nothing but divisiveness and dysfunction.” He’s also a vocal critic of Donald Trump.

Who wanted him to run?
Moderate, business-friendly “Never Trump” Republicans love Hogan.

Could he have won?
No.

(John Locher / AP) Chris Sununu

Who is he?
The governor of New Hampshire, he’s the little brother of former Senator John E. Sununu and son of former White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu.

Is he running?
“Maybe I run, maybe I don’t,” he said in early February. But he passed on a Senate run last year and just created a fundraising vehicle that typically presages a candidacy.

Why does he want to run?
Sununu seems disgusted by a lot of Washington politics and sees his success in New Hampshire, a purple-blue state, as a model for small-government conservatism.

Who wants him to run?
Trump-skeptical Republicans, old-school conservatives.

Can he win the nomination?
Maybe.

(David Becker / The Washington Post / Getty) Tim Scott

Who is he?
A South Carolinian, Scott is the only Black Republican senator.

Is he running?
Probably. On April 12, he launched an exploratory committee, just as he visited Iowa. He also says he doesn’t plan to run for another Senate term.

Why does he want to run?
Unlike some of the others on this list, Scott doesn’t telegraph his ambition quite so plainly, but he’s built a record as a solid Republican. He was aligned with Trump, but never sycophantically attached.

Who wants him to run?
Scott’s Senate colleagues adore him.

Can he win the nomination?
Who knows? The soft-spoken Scott is untested in this kind of campaign.

(Scott Olson / Getty) Mike Pompeo

Who is he?
Pompeo, a former member of Congress, led the CIA and was secretary of state under Trump.

Is he running?
No. On April 14, Pompeo announced he wasn’t running. “This is not that time or that moment for me to seek elected office again,” he said.

Why did he want to run?
Pompeo has always been ambitious, and he seems to think he can combine MAGA proximity with a hawkish foreign-policy approach.

Who wanted him to run?
That’s not entirely clear.

Could he have won the nomination?
Maybe, but probably not.

(Misha Friedman / Getty) Glenn Youngkin

Who is he?
Youngkin, the former CEO of the private-equity Carlyle Group, was elected governor of Virginia in 2021.

Is he running?
Probably not. He said on May 1 that he wasn’t running “this year.” That’s a little short of Shermanesque, but it’d be hard to mount a real campaign starting in the 2024 calendar year—unless other Republicans self-destruct, which could happen.

Why does he want to run?
Youngkin is a bit of a cipher; he ran largely on education issues, and has sought to tighten abortion laws in Virginia, so far to no avail.

Who wants him to run?
Republicans who see him as able to run on Trumpy cultural issues while keeping some distance from Trump.

Can he win the nomination?
Certainly not if he isn’t running.

(Megan Varner / Getty) Mike Pence

Who is he?
The former vice president, he also served as governor of Indiana and U.S. representative.

Is he running?
Pretty likely, though he hasn’t declared.

Why does he want to run?
Pence has long harbored White House dreams, and he has a strong conservative-Christian political agenda. His time as Trump’s VP both makes him more plausible and probably rules him out, because he’s fallen afoul of his old boss.

Who wants him to run?
Conservative Christians, rabbit lovers.

[Read: Nobody likes Mike Pence]

Can he win the nomination?
It’s hard to see it happening.

(Mandel Ngan / Getty) Francis Suarez

Who is he?
Suarez is the popular second-term mayor of Miami and the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Is he running?
He’s been telling reporters for months that he’s considering, most recently in March.

Why does he want to run?
Suarez touts his youth—he’s 45—and said in October 2022, “I’m someone who believes in a positive aspirational message. I’m someone who has a track record of success and a formula for success.” He’s also someone who voted against the Republican Ron DeSantis in the 2018 governor’s race and did not vote for Trump in 2020.

Who wants him to run?
Is there really room for another moderate-ish Republican in the race? Suarez reports that Trump said he was the “hottest politician in America after him,” but the former president is himself running, and with DeSantis a presumptive candidate, Suarez would be an underdog in his home state.

Can he win the nomination?
Highly unlikely.

(Sam Wolfe / Bloomberg / Getty) Mike Rogers

Who is he?
Rogers is a congressman from Alabam—wait, no, sorry, that’s the other Representative Mike Rogers. This one is from Michigan and retired in 2015. He was previously an FBI agent and was head of the Intelligence Committee while on Capitol Hill.

Is he running?
He is thinking about it and has formed a group with the suitably vague name “Lead America.”

Why does he want to run?
He laid out some unassailably broad ideas for a campaign in an interview with Fox News, including a focus on innovation and civic education, but it’s hard to tell what exactly the goal is here. “This is not a vanity project for me,” he added, which, okay, sure.

Who wants him to run?
“I think the Trump, Trump-lite lane is pretty crowded,” he told Fox. “The lane that is not talking about Trump, that is talking about solutions and the way forward and what the real challenges we face—I just don’t find a lot of people in that lane.” Which, again, okay?

Can he win the nomination?
Nope.

(Ida Mae Astute / Getty) Chris Christie

Who is he?
What a journey this guy has had, from U.S. attorney to respected governor of New Jersey to traffic-jam laughingstock to Trump sidekick to Trump critic. Whew.

Is he running?
He really wants to, but he is “trying to figure out” if there’s a way to run against Trump and DeSantis, he told Fox News in late March. A former aide told The New York Times that Christie “wants for sure” to run.

Why does he want to run?
Anyone who runs for president once and loses wants to run again—especially if he thinks the guy who beat him is an idiot, as Christie clearly thinks about Trump. Moreover, he seems agitated to see other Republicans trying to run without criticizing Trump.

Who wants him to run?
“I’ve had a lot of interesting conversations with donors over the course of the last few weeks,” Christie has said, as is obligatory of long-shot candidates. But he doesn’t seem to have much of a campaign-in-waiting or a clear constituency.

Can he win the nomination?
Highly doubtful.

(Todd Williamson / Getty) Larry Elder

Who is he?
A longtime conservative radio host and columnist, he ran as a Republican in the unsuccessful 2021 attempt to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom.

Is he running?
Yes. He announced his campaign on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show on April 20.

Why does he want to run?
Glad you asked! “America is in decline, but this decline is not inevitable,” he tweeted. “We can enter a new American Golden Age, but we must choose a leader who can bring us there. That’s why I’m running for President.” We don’t have any idea what that means either.

Who wants him to run?
Impossible to say at this stage, but deep-blue California is a tough launching pad for any conservative, especially an unseasoned candidate. This recall campaign also dredged up various unflattering information about his past.

Can he win the nomination?
Hope springs eternal, but probability does not.

It has been 70 years since the world last witnessed the crowning of a new British monarch. On Tuesday, May 2, The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, will join the U.K.-based staff writers Sophie Gilbert and Helen Lewis to talk about the new era of the monarchy and its role both within the United Kingdom and on the international stage. Register for the event here.

One of the stranger aspects of the modern British monarchy is that its special occasions come with an official dish. Where his mother had curried chicken for her coronation, an exotic proposition in 1950s Britain, King Charles III now has a ceremonial quiche. The recipe, according to Buckingham Palace, involves “a crisp, light pastry case and delicate flavours of spinach, broad beans and fresh tarragon.” The quiche is simple to make, can be easily adapted for those with allergies, and—much like the Royal Family’s ongoing revenge on Prince Harry—is a dish best served cold.

I hesitate to read too much into a quiche, but you could argue that the “popular oven-baked savoury tart” (thank you, The Times) is a symbol of the new King’s political outlook. Charles’s worldview is hard to describe, because it blends eco-radicalism with deep traditionalism. He has been talking about green issues since the 1970s—he was way ahead of the curve on organic farming—but his environmentalism is very different from the leftist doomer vibes of Extinction Rebellion or Just Stop Oil. Instead, it springs from an aristocratic sense of merely passing through the world, of being a custodian for the next generation. The Royal Family loves sustainability, as you might, too, if you’d inherited all your sofas. A free tip to anyone lucky enough to be among the 2,000 guests who will be inside Westminster Abbey for the coronation: Don’t wear Shein. As of a few years ago, the new King was still wearing a pair of shoes he bought in 1971.

[From the December 2022 issue: The petulant king]

Last year, when Queen Elizabeth II died, my former colleague Tom McTague referred to her son and heir as the Hobbit King: “He is far more interested in the benefits of traditional English hedgerows than the great, global glory of Britain.” How right he was. The invitation to the coronation on May 6 is illustrated with a hedgerow border, complete with a bee, a wren, and a garland of oak leaves. It even features a Green Man, a quasi-mystical symbol of rebirth carved into many English churches. (Sadly, the new King declined to include a carving often paired with the Green Man, the Sheela Na Gig, a female figure “showing pink,” as they say in the porn industry.)

Whenever I write about the British royals, I find myself wondering how a family that owes its position to the illegitimate son of a Norman noble invading Sussex in 1066 can credibly claim to be at the vanguard of social change. The gold coronation coach will trundle through crowds of onlookers squeezed by inflation of up to 80 percent on basic foodstuffs in the past year. Royal visits to the Caribbean are now marked by intense awkwardness over the legacy of slavery and colonialism. And as Meghan Markle discovered sometime between her 2019 Vogue guest-edit and her escape to British Columbia the following year, duchesses are poorly placed to talk about equality.

[Read: The issue with Meghan Markle’s Vogue issue]

Nonetheless, King Charles is trying, in his hobbitish way, to move with the times. At the coronation, the oil used to anoint him will be vegan-friendly—something that caused consternation among certain tabloids—because it will not be made with ambergris or civet musk (extracted, respectively, from whale intestines and a tree mammal’s anal glands). But family tradition comes into play too: The oil will come from olives harvested from beside the grave of Charles’s grandmother Alice, in Jerusalem. It has been blessed by an Orthodox patriarch with a huge beard.

These attempts to reconcile old and new are everywhere in the ceremony. The oil might be free from feline anal musk, but as with his mother’s coronation in 1953, Charles has decided not to allow cameras to film the anointing—which he considers to be a moment of connection with God. At the same time, he has previously defined himself as a “defender of faiths” as well as “defender of the faith.” (The latter title was conferred on Henry VIII by the Pope in 1521, in one of history’s most spectacular “you’ll never guess what happened next” moments.) The coronation will be overseen by the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury, but also attended by Britain’s chief rabbi, who has been given a room at a royal residence within walking distance of the Abbey so he doesn’t have to use a car on the Sabbath; the Catholic archbishop of Westminster; and London Mayor Sadiq Khan, a Muslim. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who is Hindu, will read from the New Testament. Not everyone likes these attempts to bring the coronation into the 21st century. One particularly overwrought article in The European Conservative accused Charles of having a “Koraonation” because of his sympathy for Islam, while in The Telegraph, Petronella Wyatt offered my single favorite paragraph on the whole hoopla: “It is particularly disturbing that the Earl of Derby has not been asked to provide falcons, as his family have done since the 16th Century. These little things deprive people of their purpose in life.”

The case against Charles will be well known to anyone who’s watched The Crown; read Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare; or picked up a supermarket tabloid in the past half century. He was cold to his first wife, distant to his second son, and his brother was a friend of Jeffrey Epstein. He used to have an aide to squeeze his toothpaste onto the brush—an aide who later had to resign from Charles’s pet charity after promising to obtain an official honor for a Saudi tycoon in exchange for £1.5 million. Nonetheless, it’s quite funny that the descendant of nearly 1,000 years of mildly inbred aristocrats is less frothingly anti-woke than the average Fox News talking head. To the new King’s credit, Buckingham Palace officially supports academic efforts to research the family’s links to the slave trade, and Charles attended the ceremony in 2021 where the new republic of Barbados formally dispensed with his mother’s services as head of state.

For all his undoubted faults, Charles has recognized something about the British character—that we find change most palatable when we’re wallowing in nostalgia. You can see it in the Brexit vote, which was presented to Baby Boomers less as a leap into the unknown than a reversion to the status quo ante—specifically the early 1970s, before Britain joined the Common Market, a time within living memory. In a similar vein, one of the BBC’s lockdown hits was a show called The Repair Shop, filmed at a historic museum where visitors can see what medieval British houses were like (I’ve been to the museum, so I can tell you: cold, damp, and faintly redolent of pigs). The program, hosted by the furniture restorer Jay Blades, attracts Britons desperate to have their heirlooms revived. If you like the sound of someone spending several hours carefully beating out the dents in a vintage fireman’s helmet, Repair Shop is for you. Last year, the series featured one Charles Windsor promoting the Prince’s Trust vocational-training initiative, in which young people learn how to become blacksmiths and stonemasons.

[Helen Lewis: Prince Harry’s book undermines the idea of the monarchy]

Blades, a Black Briton who comes from inner London and has a gold tooth, bonded with the Windsor heir, who carried a handkerchief that could have doubled as a bedsheet, over their love of traditional crafts. “The great tragedy is the lack of vocational education in schools; not everybody is designed for the academic,” said Charles, who attended Cambridge University despite performing terribly on his secondary-school exams. “Not me,” agreed Blades, who discovered as an adult that he was functionally illiterate. The moment showed that the new King is desperate to give middle Britain what it loves: the aspiration to judge people not by the color of their skin, but by their ability to restore a 19th-century commemorative tea set.

Which brings us back to the quiche. It was specially designed to be shareable, with the hope that patriotic Britons will host coronation street parties at which it can star as the eggy focal point, the savory showstopper, the shortcrust pièce de résistance. I’m tempted to laugh at that idea, but it’s barely been six months since thousands of people lined up for 12 hours straight to see Elizabeth II lying in state. The anti-shoplifting gates at my local supermarket are now decked with purple banners urging me to celebrate her son’s ascent to the throne. My local park is holding a “South London samba” festival. You can buy a coronation-themed illuminated cushion.

Britain is a strange and unfathomable place, even to those of us who have been here all our lives. I want to tell Americans that we are nothing like Downton Abbey and The Great British Bake-Off, and then I remember that our new King has an official quiche.

Most Americans were introduced to the Supreme Court’s “shadow docket” in 2021, when the majority declined to block a Texas law that banned abortion in the state after six weeks. Despite the protestations of the conservative justices at the time, the decision foreshadowed the 6–3 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case guaranteeing the right to an abortion.

[Adam Serwer: By attacking me, Justice Alito proved my point]

Steve Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of the forthcoming The Shadow Docket, was one of the few legal observers who had been sounding the alarm on the Supreme Court’s use of emergency orders to make sweeping changes to American law outside of public scrutiny and regular procedure. Although emergency orders in time-sensitive cases had long been a part of the high court’s work, in recent years the volume, breadth, and partisan valence of the justices’ rulings in such matters had changed.

The conservative justices’ use of the shadow docket to make rapid, expansive rulings on important matters has since drawn public scrutiny and even criticism from both the Court’s Democratic appointees and Chief Justice John Roberts. Most recently, the Supreme Court stayed a ruling from a conservative judge outlawing the abortion drug mifepristone, an apparent retreat from the Court’s recent aggressive use of the shadow docket.

In his book, Vladeck notes that Justice Samuel Alito has “accused the shadow docket's critics of trying to intimidate the Court and undermine its legitimacy in the eyes of the public.” Vladeck explains, however, that he wrote the book not to delegitimize the Court, “but because I fear that the Court is delegitimizing itself, and that not enough people—the justices included—are noticing."

I spoke to Vladeck about his upcoming book, how the shadow docket has shaped American law, and whether public backlash to the Court’s conduct has had an effect on the justices.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Adam Serwer: What is the shadow docket? And why should people care?

Steve Vladeck: The term shadow docket is this evocative shorthand that Chicago law professor Will Baude coined in 2015, not as a pejorative, but just as an umbrella term to capture everything the Supreme Court does other than thoroughly explained, merits decisions [on the regular docket]. Will’s insight, which I’ve somewhat shamelessly appropriated, is that a lot of important stuff happens in the more technical side of the Court’s docket—important stuff that affects all of us, that shapes the law and lower courts, and that we sort of ignored at our peril. And what’s remarkable about that is that Will wrote that in 2015. And if anything, the last eight years have actually dramatically underscored just how right he was.

Serwer: How did the shadow docket change during the Trump administration?

Vladeck: It’s common for those who like to defend the Court to say, “There’s always been a shadow docket.” That’s true. The really big shift during the Trump administration is in how the Court used one slice of the shadow docket, what we might call the emergency docket. These are contexts in which a party is asking the Court to step in while a case is working its way through the courts, and either freeze a lower-court ruling or block government action that lower courts refuse to block.

And during the Trump administration, we see the Court intervening far more often, in non-death-penalty cases, where the emergency interventions are having statewide and nationwide effects. And so instead of the Court allowing an execution to proceed or freezing one, you have the Court allowing a Trump immigration policy to be carried out perhaps for three years, or freezing a state COVID restriction. That’s a huge qualitative shift. We also saw the Court doing this a lot more often. So there’s also a quantitative uptick. And all the while, the Court is hewing to its norm of not usually explaining any of these procedural orders. And so the Court is providing no rationale, no vote count, nor even telling us who wrote whatever the Court has said on the subject.

Serwer: How did COVID affect the shadow docket?

Vladeck: First we had the flurry of religious-liberty challenges to stay COVID-mitigation policies. And we saw these especially in blue states, where the claims were that COVID restrictions, insofar as they operated on houses of worship or other religious gatherings, violated the free-exercise clause.

Here we saw the Court’s most aggressive use of the shadow docket, repeatedly intervening—and especially after Justice Amy Coney Barrett replaced Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg—to block these policies in New York, to block them in California, to block them in Colorado, to block them in New Jersey. The COVID cases pushed the Court to expand the scope of religious-liberty protection in the Constitution entirely through these emergency orders, orders that were usually unexplained and never had the same process as merits cases. And that’s especially telling because all this is happening as the Court has on its merits docket cases that would have given the justices similar opportunities to expand the free-exercise clause.

[Adam Serwer: Five justices did this because they could]

That’s the first way. Then you have all of these election cases, where you have either states that try to make it easier to vote remotely because of COVID or states that don’t and then get sued. So you have an unusual concentration of election-related disputes, where the Court is put in the position of trying to decide what rules should attach to voting as we get closer and closer to the election. And we see, in both of those contexts … we see the Court using these emergency orders to shape policy, oftentimes without making any law. And, you know, I think, perhaps most perniciously in ways that tended to at least appear to favor Republicans over Democrats.

Serwer: Some people would say that the Supreme Court did exactly what should have been done in these religious-liberty shadow-docket cases: They were protecting people’s right to worship. How do you see those cases, and how do you see them having changed the legal landscape as far as religious liberty is concerned?

Vladeck: Reasonable folks are going to disagree about what the free-exercise clause ought to protect. The question is, if the Court is going to change the meaning of the free-exercise clause, should it be doing so through a series of emergency orders, where there hasn’t really been a full opportunity for briefing, where there was no oral argument, where there was really very little opportunity for friends of the Court to weigh in? Should [the Court] be doing this in a context in which they’re only supposed to grant relief, if the rights are already “indisputably clear”—that’s the standard for an injunction pending appeal? Or should they be doing it the normal way on the merits docket?

And so what’s remarkable about the COVID cases is that here’s a context where, instead of just using emergency applications and emergency orders to adjust the status quo, the Court willfully changed the underlying constitutional principles, perhaps added them in ways that we would think are defensible, if not even normally desirable—but in a way that really is not supposed to be what these kinds of procedural orders are for.

Serwer: Did you think that the Texas case regarding Senate Bill 8 and abortion was the first time the shadow docket really started drawing public notice outside of Court watchers and reporters?

Vladeck: Oh, absolutely. And there’s actually some media scholarship that backs this up. There was a study in the Chicago Policy Review that tracked references to the shadow docket in mainstream media outlets, and they skyrocketed after the September 2020 nonintervention in the Texas case. I think it was really the S.B. 8 case that put this on the map.

That attention also produced some fascinating reactions. In response to that public blowback, we saw the first conservative attempts to defend what the Court had been doing, with Alito’s speech at Notre Dame and editorials in The Wall Street Journal. But we also see some of the justices shifting their behavior. There’s this remarkably cryptic, but I think important, concurring opinion that Justice Barrett, joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writes in the main health-care-worker vaccine case, at the end of October 2021. Justice Barrett basically says, Hey, just because you make out your case for emergency relief, doesn’t mean we have to grant it.

In retrospect, I think she was signaling that perhaps she and Justice Kavanaugh were lowering the temperature, and are going to be a little more cautious in when they would vote for emergency relief going forward. That’s borne out by what’s happened in the last 18 months, by how much less often the Court has granted emergency relief, by how much more often we’re seeing some combination of Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch dissent from rulings regarding emergency applications.

Serwer: How are the lower courts reacting to the way the Supreme Court has been using the shadow docket?

Vladeck: I think the lower courts are in a bit of a sticky wicket, because in some of these cases, especially in the COVID religious-liberty cases, the Supreme Court has been instructing lower courts that its unsigned, unexplained orders are precedential—and that lower courts are erring, as the Court says in one case of the Ninth Circuit, by not following rulings where there was no majority rationale. So I think the lower courts are largely doing their best, but it’s really hard to know what to do if you are a principled, faithful, lower-federal-court judge, when the Supreme Court historically has said, If we don’t provide a rationale, we’re not giving you precedent to follow, and then the Court acts differently in this context.

I think we’re seeing a bit of a smorgasbord where some lower courts are just following what the Supreme Court has said, and some are just throwing up their hands and saying, Without more guidance from the Supreme Court, I’m just sort of stuck here. That’s perhaps the biggest point on which there ought to be consensus: Leaving aside who wins and who loses, the less the Supreme Court explains itself in this context, the harder it is for the relevant actors, for the lower courts, for the relevant government officials, to understand what their responsibilities are. That should presumably be something we all have common cause in ameliorating.

Serwer: How would you describe the Court’s use of the shadow docket in voting-rights cases?

Vladeck: What we saw in 2022 was a pair of decisions in the Alabama and Louisiana cases where—after pretty exhaustive efforts to take evidence and get to the bottom of the factual disputes—lower courts had said, Hey, states, you’ve got to redraw your maps because the current ones violate the Voting Rights Act. And the Supreme Court, despite these lengthy lower-court rulings, just says, Hey, states, no, you don’t.

That’s especially significant in this particular moment, because between Alabama and Louisiana directly, that’s at least two House seats. There’s also a federal judge in Georgia who said he would have blocked Georgia’s maps but for the unexplained stay in the Alabama case. So that’s three House seats. You know, there’s a New York Times report that suggests that somewhere between seven and 10 House seats might have been directly affected by the Court’s voting-rights cases on the shadow docket in early 2022. That’s control of the House. If all of those districts had been majority-minority districts, I don’t think it’s that remarkable a suggestion that many of them would have been safe seats for Democrats. Instead, they were all safe seats for Republicans. And so right there, you have an argument that unsigned, unexplained orders from the Supreme Court helped Republicans to take control of the House of Representatives.

Serwer: Last week, the Court took up a ruling where a lower-court judge banned the abortion pill, which is the most common way that women today get abortions. What do you make of the Court’s decision there?

Vladeck: There’s so much to say about the mifepristone case. One thing is, in some respects, this is actually more like an old-school emergency application, where you have this remarkable outlier ruling by a lower court. It’s highly possible that the justices just looked at the equities and said, Whatever the right answer is to this case on appeal, we’re not going to disrupt such an important medication while that appeal works its way through the courts, that we’re going to sort of preserve the status quo, first and foremost, and worry about the legal issues later. So in that respect, I think it was actually probably a page out of the older playbook.  

I also think that it’s emblematic of why the shadow docket has become such an important part of any public discussion of the Supreme Court. Because the mifepristone case gets from an injunction, or at least a stay by a district judge, to a pretty important rule by the Supreme Court in two weeks. Ten years ago, that would have been unheard of, and it’s become, to a large degree, de rigeur—you know, the student-loan cases get to the Supreme Court remarkably quickly after they’re filed. Part of why the shadow docket has become so important is because we’re seeing more and more of these lower-court rulings that put pressure on the justices far earlier in cases than they’re used to, with far higher stakes at that stage in litigation than they’re used to.

[Stephen I. Vladeck: The Supreme Court needs to show its work]

If the Court is frustrated with how many of these cases are getting to it in this crazy expedited, record-free posture, the justices have a way of expressing that and saying, This is no way to run a railroad. And instead, what we’re seeing is just one emergency after another, for a Court that as recently as five, six, seven years ago, would maybe have gotten one of these cases a year.

Serwer: Do you think public criticism and internal dissent at the Court over the shadow docket has made a difference?

Vladeck: I do. I mean, I’ll never prove it. But I think it’s really hard to look at the overall data set and compare, for example, the October 2020 term to the last two terms and not see pretty significant shifts in at least how some of the justices are behaving. Not surprisingly, the shifts are principally centered on the three justices in the middle. So Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Barrett and Kavanaugh.

But it’s hard to believe that that’s a coincidence. And it’s hard to believe that the subtle but significant shifts in when the Court has granted emergency relief and how it’s behaving in these cases are unrelated to some of the public criticism, to some of the pushback.

I think that’s an important point unto itself. There’s such a fatalism these days about the idea that the Court is in any way subject to public criticism, responsive to public criticism. To me, the shadow docket might be an object lesson and how maybe it actually is [responsive to public criticism], especially when we’re talking about procedural critiques, as opposed to substantive ones.