The pragmatist vs. the purist

It turns out Bernie Sanders responds to coronavirus the same way he responds to everything else

biden sanders
(Image credit: MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

For all but the opening 20 minutes and concluding moments of the first one-on-one debate between former vice president Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a viewer transported from the recent past would never have known that the country and the world are in the midst of a pandemic, that the U.S. is currently in a state of emergency, and that the global economy is tottering on the verge of a deep recession caused by public-health measures required to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

Which is to say that the debate seemed utterly normal and, for that very reason, oddly cut off from the anxieties dominating the world around it.

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Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.