What is unique about this crisis is the specific way the virus ties our fates together. Now, 87 years on, the United States is facing a pandemic that has-in a matter of weeks-radically altered our country, with millions of Americans adapting to social distancing and stay-at-home orders, and mass unemployment at Great Depression levels, all driving toward a monumental shift that is restructuring our economy and our social order. Seventy years later, the country faced the Great Depression, a crisis that ravaged our economy and was redressed by President Roosevelt’s New Deal, which reshaped domestic economic relations and created a strong national government for the first time. The Civil War came 74 years after our Founding and was fought over the nation’s original disastrous decision on slavery and race. Every 80 years or so, America faces a crisis that reshapes our government, our economy, and our society.
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