Can the US survive a game of spoilers? Republicans will try to make the nation ungovernable if a Democrat sits in the White House after the election. It's been nearly four years since Congress passed, and Donald Trump signed, a massive relief bill aimed at limiting the economic suffering caused by Covid-19.

Although about 25 million Americans temporarily lost their jobs – the job losses were caused primarily by fear of contagion and not by officially declared closures – there was much less monetary pain than might have been expected.