Shelves normally stocked with hand wipes, hand sanitizer and toilet paper sit empty at a Target store near Arlington, Virginia.(Win McNamee / Getty Images)
EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.
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Progressive ideas don’t always break through when voters are fearful. Often in times of crisis, calls for solidarity have been overpowered by a mantra of the right: In government we distrust. Yet the coronavirus is making this worldview harder to maintain—and exacerbating deep structural problems in our society.
In their debate on Sunday, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and former vice president Joe Biden offered different visions of government and its role in a crisis. While Biden focused more on the immediate crisis and Sanders more on the systemic issues that are exacerbating it, both set a higher bar than the current administration has.
The context is grim: The number of coronavirus cases in the United States continues to rise, schools are closing across the nation and large gatherings have been disbanded. As many as 214 million Americans might contract the virus, one estimate projects.
Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.
Katrina vanden HeuvelTwitterKatrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of The Nation, America’s leading source of progressive politics and culture. She served as editor of the magazine from 1995 to 2019.