With the Republican infighting over relief and Democratic unity, I can only hope that we are hearing the death knell of the age of austerity — rung in part by a waning Donald J. Trump.

For 40 years, we have had an epic national argument about whether government should act boldly to help people.

Republicans were united: no, it shouldn’t. Democrats were divided.

Is this present Republican split a crack that foretells a new era?

My hope is that 2020 comes to be remembered as the bookend to 1980. The year when what was true all along became more obvious than ever. That government can and must act to guard us from forces and actors we are too powerless to challenge on our own.