This pandemic has exposed our nation’s broken caregiving system

For a brief history of presidential responses to national crises over the past century, you could start by looking at the list of White House “czars.”

The term was born in 1918 when President Woodrow Wilson appointed financier Bernard Baruch to coordinate the production and purchase of war supplies for World War I. The press dubbed Baruch the “industry czar,” and although his role disappeared when the war ended, “czar” became shorthand for a certain kind of high-level administration role periodically created to focus accountability on key issues.