What Getting Real Would Mean

Getting real would be admitting to ourselves that we’re in an epochal confrontation with Putin. There’s been nothing like it since our confrontation with Axis powers in World War II. Then we had gas rationing, price controls, windfall profits taxes, and a more progressive tax system to ward off destructive inflation and concentrate on defeating the enemy. We should adopt policies that reflect the magnitude of our present challenge. We could to a large degree supplant Russia as the biggest supplier of fossil fuels to Europe and reduce air pollution in the U.S. at the same time.