You know, I’m old enough to remember polio and the drive to get every kid in the United States vaccinated. I’m old enough to remember people pitching in and making it happen because they cared about their communities.

I’m also old enough that my grandparents' generation served in World War II. Those who didn’t serve directly stayed home and made sacrifices. Do any of us remember food rationing? It was a thing my grandmother told me about all the time, told me with pride edging her voice as she recounted how her generation pulled together and made sacrifices together for the public good.

She voted Republican her whole life, by the way. If you asked her, she would have told you she was conservative. Being conservative and Republican then did not equal elevating individual liberty to perverse heights. Certainly not to heights that would kill innocent people.

I shudder to think what would have become of us if today’s Republicans had been in charge when World War II threatened the world with fascism and when polio threatened to decimate our children.