In his recent bad-for-the-country-but-good-for-him appearance on CNN, Donald Trump said this about his decision, as president, to forcibly separate migrant children from their parents: “When you have that policy, people don’t come. If a family hears that they’re going to be separated—they love their family—they don’t come.” He went on to say, “I know it sounds harsh … We have to save our country.”

The policy was not merely harsh. It was inhuman, and un-American. Yet Trump continues to endorse a policy for which (to borrow from my colleague Adam Serwer) the cruelty is the point. And this policy could be revived if Trump were to win, or steal, the presidency next year.

Last September, when we published Caitlin Dickerson’s magnificent cover story, “ ‘We Need to Take Away Children,’ ” on the origins and execution of the family-separation policy, I did not fully believe that Trump could have a plausible path back to the presidency. Such is the deluding power of hope. We originally asked Caitlin to write what became a nearly 30,000-word investigation because we thought it necessary to document for future generations a homegrown human-rights grotesquerie. But now that Trump has a clear chance to again win his party’s nomination, I’m especially proud that we published this story. I hope our readers will share it with all Americans of goodwill. And I’m pleased to say that Caitlin recently received the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting for her work. We did not publish this story to win prizes, but I’m overjoyed to see Caitlin and her editor, Scott Stossel, receive such acclaim, and such an endorsement of their revelatory work.

Caitlin’s is the third Pulitzer Prize for The Atlantic in as many years. In fact, the cover story from our September 2021 issue, by Jennifer Senior, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing last year. We are now planning our September 2023 issue. And we are feeling a certain amount of pressure.

If there were a Pulitzer Prize for crossword puzzles, I don’t doubt that Caleb Madison, The Atlantic’s resident puzzle wizard, would win. Many of you are familiar with his work from TheAtlantic.com. Beginning this issue, you will find his latest invention, Caleb’s Inferno, on the back page of our print edition. Caleb’s Inferno puts a satanic spin on the traditional crossword puzzle; it is a tall, narrow grid that becomes progressively more challenging as you descend into its depths. In other words, it is a hugely fun puzzle that ends in hell. My goal this year is to solve, just one time, this damn (and damned) puzzle.

We are also saying goodbye to one of my favorite columns, the monthly Ode, written by my brilliant colleague James Parker, in partnership with his brilliant editor, John Swansburg. Across four years, James has produced enthusiasm-saturated encomia (he will mock me for this word) to, among other things, mood swings, bananas, hotel rooms, being late, giving people money, chewing gum, being yelled at, squirrels, and being yelled at by squirrels (well, not the last one). James will be concentrating on longer articles for us, including the delightful story you will find in this issue, about his Hunter S. Thompson–esque journey across America, except without acid (I think). James’s liquid, innocent, knowing, and joy-filled prose is a gift to us all. In his final Ode—an Ode to Odes—James wrote, “The universe will disclose itself to you, it will give you occasions for odes, it will blaze with interest and appreciability, but you’ve got to be ode-ready.”

Please consider all of The Atlantic to be ode-ready.

This editor’s note appears in the July/August 2023 print edition.