The world is strange and confusing right now. But if you’re old enough to have some memory of the Bush years, it may be particularly so.

Unless you’ve joined the army of professional Democrats pining for the return of former President George W. Bush, you might well be suffering from a form of mental whiplash watching conservatives suddenly demand en masse that Americans be given the freedom to get themselves and everyone around them fatally sick. Perhaps the Federalist put it best late last month:

It seems harsh to ask whether the nation might be better off letting a few hundred thousand people die. Probably for that reason, few have been willing to do so publicly thus far. Yet honestly facing reality is not callous, and refusing even to consider whether the present response constitutes an even greater evil than the one it intends to mitigate would be cowardly.