We shall see how this works out

The incremental reopening process gives new meaning to the term "American experiment"

So the national debate on when, how, and how fast to reopen the economy has decidedly sharpened.

Doctors Birx and Fauci continue to employ maximum tact, deftly steering inquiries about orchestrating an incremental comeback into reassertions of the need for caution. Dr. Birx, when asked how a hair stylist can perform her work while social distancing, wondered aloud how that could be accomplished, but said that people can be pretty creative. Others in the governmental effort go for bracing candor. CDC director Robert Redfield forthrightly speaks of an even deadlier round two later this year.

Some reasonable voices that merit respect are joining the chorus of those on the debate’s side that have decided that the economic and attendant sociocultural costs of continuing in our present mode are too great. To be sure, there is still an abundance, probably a preponderance, of goofball-style advocacy for that position.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp finds himself in a precarious position. He determined that his state had met the criteria for Phase One classsification, so he announced that various types of businesses - curiously, mostly ones that necessitate service-provider-customer proximity of considerably less than six feet - could reopen.

What’s going to be interesting to see is if the proposition gets many takers. How frequently and in what circumstances are Georgians going to be game for up-close-and-personal economic transactions?

There’s also the fact that the Very Stable Genius, who had a day before sung Kemp’s praises, as well as exhorted states to embark on the three-phase program, publicly stated that he thought Governor Kemp had jumped the gun. Then again, consistency has never been the VSG’s long suit.

What I find interesting in all this is the number of people who still feel one has to have a hard and fast take on it, that one has to pick a side. One or the other argument has to be so compelling as to overshadow the other.

We’d do well to face the reality that, just like the onset of the pandemic itself, what will be socioeconomically will be. An increasing number of establishments in an increasing number of places are going to dip their toes in the water, and we shall see how that goes.

All of this is unprecedented, so we don’t have historical precedents to refer to. (Well, the Philadelphia experience in 1918 sort of qualifies.)

America has been an experiment in many ways since its inception, and so there’s a sense in which the way we’re maneuvering through this situation is classically American.

And so here we go.