Apr 14, 2020 5 min read

WASHINGTON – Mass burials in New York; homeless hotels in San Francisco; record unemployment.

A list of COVID-19’s effects could fill this space and far more, but most people know the headlines. We see what’s on our television screens and beyond our windows. One can’t overstate the ways and dimensions of how this virus has changed our world. Anti-globalists will want to use the pandemic to make their case, but we may as well hate mass transportation.

Even if we flatten that blasted curve, we’re told, the virus will return. Which means if we are ever released to go back to work or play, we will soon be coming back home. Next flu season, the virus may have mutated for its own survival. So, we must as well.

But how? Until we have a vaccine, all bets are off. We know that there will be another epidemic – and perhaps one after that – the next time a virus makes the leap from an exotic animal to a human in a wet market on a distant continent. COVID-19 went around the world in 100 days.

Depressing, yes. In New York, cardiac arrest calls to 9-1-1 are surging. Bright spots of generosity and stories of heroism in our hospitals buoy our spirits in flashes of light, but dimness soon follows as we wonder whether and when this nightmare will end.

Amid all this, one thing is certain: BS is dead. Which is to say, politics as we know it is dead.

That’s a (small) reason to celebrate. The endless and often pointless art of pitting one side against another is unhelpful in a world on fire. House and Senate Democrats are holding up legislation aimed at saving small businesses – the core of the American economy – because they want to attach their own policy priorities.

The sometimes diverting sport of who’s up and who’s down is no longer relevant or interesting. Even in a presidential election year, the stakes are so vastly elevated that the usual measures and markers seem ridiculous. With whom would you rather drink a beer? Are you kidding?

Words like “slick” and “Teflon” to describe politicians who escape scrutiny or condemnation for deeds dubious can be shelved; only one kind of immunity interests us now. Retail politics are passe as well. The primary debates held just a few months ago seem like artifacts from a distant time. What networks call a “candidate town hall” is now anathema in most states. Conventions will be virtual and parades and walk-a-thons to #getoutthevote are now danger zones. Nobody cares if Joe Biden can still jog.

Touch my baby and you’re dead.

Everyone is walking around with 10-foot poles. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was singing my tune when he said we should give up handshaking for good. Why did we stop wearing gloves, anyway? Social kissing? See ya. Social distancing is a fine idea. Space is what we value now.

How, then, will politicians – our would-be leaders – try to connect with us going forward? As much as possible. Donald Trump is dialing up his daily presence on TV, surrounded by his personal encore club, though it may work against him. Biden might be in a tighter spot: the most high-touch pol in memory is now trying to read a teleprompter in his basement rec room.

We don’t need comedians, celebrities or “nice” guys leading the ranks. Like the patient who doesn’t care if a brilliant doctor has a lousy bedside manner, the country is tilting toward a more serious kind of leadership. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s daily briefings are a reminder that style has little value in a democracy in crisis. Joe Friday, the deadpan detective in the TV series “Dragnet,” might win in a landslide today.

Reality, baby. We’re all looking down the gun barrel of reality, the upshot of which is a reordering of priorities. The economic wreckage might help the challenger, but the new American carnage may present Trump with a chance to polish off his old scapegoats. Everything he campaigned for in 2016 would resonate more today than ever. China lied; people died.

The virus certainly has changed the political conversation. The jobs undocumented populations took because nobody else wanted them are now jobs that everybody wants. Millions of small businesses are applying for relief. We don’t have bread lines (yet) but the Los Angeles Times recently featured a photo of a mother and her son hawking masks on a street corner.

If Americans weren’t fed up before, mass burials and vacant downtowns will fill their plates with discontent. And making America great again will be the challenge of the millennium. If we’re up to it.

Kathleen Parker is a columnist for the Washington Post. Her email address is kathleenparker@washpost.com.