I wonder if something like this holds for societal stressors. Take the force of a shock and spread it out over a large time horizon—say, three or four years—and the resulting societal pressures will be smaller than if it happens across a relatively short time frame.

What happens when you compress the time frame? Even aside from the economic impact of the last two months and the months ahead, what is the societal impact of experiencing the death toll of Vietnam—and counting—over a 12 week period?

The answer is: A great deal of societal pressure.

The point is not that the pandemic is worse than Vietnam, or vice versa; historically and morally, they are very different world events. The point, rather, is that, three months into the COVID-19 crisis, most Americans have yet to internalize the magnitude of the change that could come from it.

The effects of the Vietnam war on American society and the American psyche—and on more than a generation of U.S. foreign and domestic politics—were enormous.