A huge federal disaster response, new urgency around health care and a debate over social distancing have muddled the nation’s ideological debate. NOTE BIDEN ADVISER QUOTE

By Jim Rutenberg @ NYTimes.com, April 5

The 2020 edition of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Md., in February offered a theme-park version of what was to be President Trump’s re-election message: Under the banner of “America vs. Socialism,” the convention featured [....]

And the CPAC message seemed a relic from a distant time.

 Such is life for the political warriors of the Covid-19 campaign, where, in this pre-peak stage of the crisis, the national political debate is inside out and upside down, sending both sides of the national divide scurrying to figure out where the new political and ideological lines will settle come the fall [....]

“We don’t know what it’s going to look like on the other side of this in terms of people’s attitudes — whether it’s going to have short-term effects or long-term effects,” said Anita Dunn, a senior adviser to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the likely Democratic presidential nominee [....]

Beyond the back and forth is the question that has rested at the heart of American politics since the New Deal: What is the federal government’s appropriate place in managing public welfare and private behavior? [....]