During an election in which it feels like the very existence of our democracy hangs in the balance, producer Sean Cole and someone very close to him have been dealing with their own immediate existential questions.

Ira gives us a recent shortlist of things that feel almost too unreal to believe as we head into the national election.

Host Ira Glass speaks to Kevin Sheekey, the man tasked with spending $100m of Mike Bloomberg’s billions on securing a Democrat win in the constant battleground state of Florida. He also speaks to producer Lina Misitzis about what’s going on down on the ground with Democrats in the state.

For the past couple-two-three weeks, producer Ben Calhoun has been calling around to small town municipal clerks in his home state of Wisconsin, asking them how mail-in balloting really works. It can be chaotic, they say, but not in the way the president would have you believe.

Host Ira Glass discusses what it means to peacefully transfer power from one president to the next. He points out one of the weirdest things about it, that the new president has to go and sleep in the same bedroom as the previous president.

Political documentaries aren’t for everyone. Especially when they’re over five hours long.

Producer Neil Drumming spends a couple days exploring Detroit, first with a quirky mayoral candidate running an Afrofuturist campaign, and then with a couple of locals.

FBI agents question NSA contractor Reality Winner, who was later charged with leaking evidence of Russian interference in U.S. elections. Even the most casual small talk takes on an air of menace. (18 minutes)This is an excerpt from Is This A Room, a play based on the real FBI interrogation transcript.

David Kestenbaum finds out about a speech that, in another world, President Clinton gave on August 17, 1998.

David Kestenbaum talks about his love of the number zero and its power to destroy. Among zero's victims: one of the most controversial laws in recent memory.

Ira and producer Robyn Semien go behind the scenes with some of the Obama staffers to hear what it felt like in the days leading up to the infamous Beer Summit of 2009.

Producer Ben Calhoun recalls a weighty moment from childhood and thinks about how the words from that encounter have come up again.

Producer Zoe Chace drives around with Washington Post political reporter extraordinaire Dave Weigel. He delights in this special period in the race where it’s easy to trip over people running for president.

When Heidi Schreck was 15 years old she loved the United States Constitution — in part, because she believed it enshrined the idea of fairness. She traveled to American Legion posts across the country, where she competed in speaking competitions about the Constitution.

Host Ira Glass talks to producer Zoe Chace about what she learned about the President and conspiracy theories at a Trump rally.