Divided We Fall

It has been clear for many years that the United States is a house divided. But since March, when the coronavirus pandemic shut down much of the country, that division has taken on a ghastly new face. Staggering death tolls and nightmarish images of body bags, overwhelmed hospitals, and freezer morgues have stirred little sense of unity or common purpose. Instead, they seem to have simply fed an already raging case of partisan polarization—another virus for which there is as yet no treatment or vaccine. It has become difficult to ask even the most basic questions—whether a certain