IRISH DEMOCRACY: Something that can’t go on forever, won’t. The lockdown can’t go on forever, and it isn’t. In Tennessee, we’re following a reasonably well-thought-out plan for reopening things. But a friend from Manhattan writes that she’s seeing stores, coffee shops, etc., just spontaneously reopening in spite of the orders. Not with loud defiance, just ignoring the government. It’s “Irish democracy,” and we’re going to see a lot more of it.

The shutdowns were sold as “two weeks to slow the spread,” and “flattening the curve,” and so on, and lots of people thought that was sensible, and it was. A two-month (or longer) shutdown is a different animal, and nobody consented to that. So now people are, mostly silently, withdrawing their consent from the state.