Day-care scarcity. Cost-of living-increases. Rolling pandemics. And as if new parents in the United States didn’t have enough to cope with right now, the infant formula shortage continues. Last week, a market research firm found that more than 28 percent of powdered baby-food products were out of stock in US stores. In some places, parents are still driving hundreds of miles to look for food for their kids.

The crisis began in February when a few babies got sick from bacterial infections, causing the temporary closure of a factory in Sturgis, Michigan, that had been the nation’s largest baby formula manufacturer, making the product for Abbott Laboratories. This catastrophic event stressed supply chains that had already been disrupted by COVID-related labor shortages. The Sturgis factory opened in June, only to close again because of flooding. (Welcome to the joys of parenting in the twenty-first century.) It’s now operating again, but the damage to the supply chain, and to public trust, has been considerable.

There are few animal instincts more visceral than the desire of parents to feed their babies. My own son is now a teenager, larger than me, but I still vividly remember the rank unimportance of any other priority when the baby was hungry. Nothing mattered — not work, plans, sleep, or world events — more than the immediate nourishment of my infant. (I still organize my day around making sure he has enough food in the house.) The rage and panic of American parents facing an obstacle to providing the basic nurture and care required by babies throughout the animal kingdom has been explosive. As angry mothers turn against the Democrats, Republicans are shrewdly exploiting the crisis.