One Legacy of Coronavirus Is a Return to Activist Government
The crisis management emerging from the pandemic may result in countries changing their priorities, perhaps taking cues from Angela Merkel.
Chancellor Angela Merkel briefs the media about the German government’s measures to avoid further spread of the coronavirus on April 6 in Berlin.
Photographer: Markus Schreiber/Pool/AFP/Getty Images
Today’s political leaders, from Angela Merkel to Donald Trump, are in rare agreement that the fight to defeat the novel coronavirus is a challenge unique since 1945. “We are at war,” is French President Emmanuel Macron’s refrain. In the U.S., Trump has proclaimed himself a “wartime president.”
Yet, as Winston Churchill discovered, it’s possible to win the war and lose the peace. At the conclusion of World War II, Britain surprised the world by voting out Churchill—who’d led it through the conflict—in favor of the opposition Labour Party and its promise of a welfare state and a national health service. A similar shift from traditional budgetary priorities—such as military spending—to dealing with basic health and welfare issues may be in store for the governments of the world.