You can argue that the extraordinary measures we took after 9/11—the wars, the surveillance, the curtailments of civil liberties—were unwise or unnecessary. You could make similar arguments today against mask mandates or vaccine mandates to fight COVID. But there’s no rational justification for what Republicans have done: sacrificing civil liberties and waging decades-long wars over an attack that took 3,000 lives, and then ignoring—and exacerbating, in the name of civil liberties—an attack that’s killing 1,000 Americans a day.

The simple truth is that Republicans don’t know how to deal with this kind of enemy. It doesn’t speak Arabic, Farsi, or Chinese. It doesn’t invoke the name of Allah. Politicians can’t rile up crowds or raise money by uniting Americans against it, as they did by railing against “radical Islamic terrorism.” In this respect, COVID has been a test of character. It challenged Republicans to decide whether they’re a party of national security, or just a party of grievance and animosity. That question has now been answered.