AFTER VIRUS, HOW WILL AMERICANS’ VIEW OF THE WORLD CHANGE?
As the coronavirus spread across the world and began its reach into the United States, an assortment of Americans from the president on down summoned one notion as they framed the emerging cataclysm.
“The Chinese virus,” they called it — or, in a few particularly racist cases, the “kung flu.” No matter the terminology of choice, the message was clear: Whatever the ravages of COVID-19 are causing, it’s somewhere else’s fault.
Not someone. Somewhere.
A thick thread of the American experience has always been to hold the rest of the world at arm’s length, whether in economics, technology
