Pandemic Response Most Demoralizing Event in U.S. History

There’s a funny scene in Robert Graves’s great novel, I, Claudius, when the son of a German chieftain who has been recruited by the Roman army gets into a shouting match with his brother, who stands at the head of a German army on the opposite side of the river from the Roman army. The brothers are reduced to an exchange of personal insults that culminates with the loyal German accusing his Romanized brother of breaking their mother’s heart.

I’ve often thought of this scene in recent years as I’...