BUT ALL THE BEST PEOPLE TOLD ME EUROPE WAS HANDLING COVID MUCH BETTER THAN US: Germany’s lockdown is already fraying. In the absence of any clear strategy, politicians have taken to blaming the public for their failings.

As German playwright Bertolt Brecht famously wrote, “Some party hack decreed that the people had lost the government’s confidence and could only regain it with redoubled effort. If that is the case, would it not be be simpler, If the government simply dissolved the people And elected another?”

As a graduate of Karl Marx University(!), on some level Angela Merkel likely views that quote as a how-to guide.