In these deeply corrosive and soul-trying times, every problem plaguing our nation falls particularly hard on children. Between the cans we’ve kicked down the road and the catastrophic failures we’ve recently blundered into, it’s our children who will ultimately suffer the most, both in their present circumstances and their future prospects. It’s a mistake to blame this solely on Trump, tempting as that may be. The blame rests mostly on the Republican party, which has spent the last several decades waging what has amounted to a war on children. Whether through systematic obstruction of all meaningful legislation, or through the aggressive gutting of all regulatory safeguards, the result is a badly frayed safety net that is putting many millions of families in increasingly dire straits. Children are the ultimate casualties. Every major issue we face has a child endangerment component we ignore at our peril. Starting with the virus. Covid has exposed deep frailties in our institutions, b...
Life and Politics in the Age of Covid