The coronavirus is a serious illness, and no country has gotten everything right. Australia has proven, though, that dispensing with key elements of advanced liberal society in the hopes of total victory over the virus is foolhardy and wrong.

Sad to say, it seems to take monstrous misfortune to unite us. The Great Depression. Pearl Harbor. 9/11. The COVID-19 pandemic, not so much. Something has happened in the past 20 years to pull us apart. Had we united against the coronavirus as we did against the Axis powers or al-Qaeda, we might have beat the virus by now.

As I watched in horror and amazement, the first tower of the World Trade Center collapsed. A sensation of astonishment came over me. The phone was still pressed against my ear, when Nancy explained that the Harvard office of the recording secretary on Mount Auburn Street was sending everyone home.

I sat there with my mouth open, trying to understand what I was seeing. Words like attack, phrases like “God help us,” and frantic news anchors’ voices came at me like bombs during the blitz.

We have become a nation of truths stranger than fiction, a nation where satire must run to keep up with reality. As we go forward from this moment, we find ourselves contending for the very soul of America — something none of us could have imagined 20 years ago. Which is why it must be said, tragically, that the terrorists succeeded beyond their dreams in inflicting damage on this country.

Abortion and refusing to take personal responsibility for one’s actions have contributed to a general coarseness and disrespect for life at all stages, as witnessed by the shooting sprees regularly occurring in Chicago and other major cities. The Texas and Mississippi laws seek to reverse, or at least slow down the process of squandering human life.

Anticipating a backlash to the program’s expiration, the Biden administration two weeks ago said states could on their own extend the jobless benefits using leftover state aid from Biden’s stimulus bill in March. Not a single state appears likely to do so, at least as of Friday. As a result, roughly 10 million people are set to lose some unemployment benefits today, including 7 million people who will lose all benefits.

The filibuster spelled the downfall of the 1977 Labor Law Reform Act, a bill that would have sped up the union recognition process and imposed stricter penalties on employers who interfered with — or retaliated against — workers attempting to unionize.

There once were summertimes when the living was easy, as the song from the Broadway musical “Porgy and Bess” melodically reminds us. But not this summer, not with COVID-19 still spreading dangerously across the land and uncertainty over what happens next after the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.