A common refrain of Biden’s partisans is that his administration has signaled a return to government by “adults.” In truth, it has done no such thing. Adults are capable of determining what they can, and cannot, control. Adults are capable of weighing competing priorities, sorting through the different advice offered by their staffers, and settling on a course of action. Adults are capable of learning their briefs in full, so that they do not end up stammering stupidly in front of a carefully watching world. Adults don’t sow the seeds of doubt if they anticipate that they, themselves, will eventually be responsible for the flowers. And, above all else, adults are capable of remembering that, if societies are not careful, they can grow so hysterically obsessed with a given threat that they forget what it is they were worried about in the first place.

President Biden is not an adult.

Like so many of the people with whom he spends his time, President Biden has turned COVID-19 into a Maguffin, transmuting the virus from a dangerous disease to which Americans are obliged to respond in a judicious manner into a proverbial white whale that, irrespective of the context or the cost, must be wiped from the face of the earth. Speaking to reporters today, Biden declined to say categorically that further lockdowns were “off the table,” in an astonishing statement that must lead one to wonder whether he is aware how much has changed over the last 18 months. At one point — before we knew what we now know, before we saw the horrific social and economic costs that our draconian measures carried, before we had COVID vaccines — our endless array of restrictions and inconveniences was defensible on the grounds of prudence. Today, it is not.