The Coronavirus Pandemic Approaches Its ‘Lord Business’ Moment Hear me out ― “The Lego Movie” has something to say about our cartoonishly bad leadership.

“The Lego Movie” was a hit with critics and audiences in 2014, but not with Sen. Ron Johnson.

The Wisconsin Republican called the film “an especially grievous slam on business” because its main villain is Lord Business, an authoritarian industrialist who wants to control all the little Lego people by gluing them into fixed positions.

At the time, Johnson’s complaint seemed odd. Corporations themselves have long promoted the idea that business can be oppressive, with the key caveat that this or that product will liberate consumers. (Think of Apple’s iconic “1984” TV ad for its Macintosh personal computer.) Johnson was upset that “The Lego Movie” ― in the course of marketing Legos and other products directly to kids for 100 minutes ― had also regurgitated decades of banal consumer culture.

But now here we are, with Republicans like Johnson insisting, on Lord Business’ behalf, that people should worry less about a virus that’s killing nearly 2,000 Americans per day, and worry more about going to work and purchasing goods and services. So what if a bunch of people die?

“Every premature death is a tragedy, but death is an unavoidable part of life,” Johnson wrote in USA Today in March.

The senator probably hasn’t spent a lot of time thinking about this, but what’s happening right now in the real world is similar to something that happens in “The Lego Movie.”

Governors in several states, with encouragement from President Donald Trump, are lifting stay-at-home orders so that businesses like restaurants and barbershops can reopen ― even though states have not met the benchmarks that epidemiologists say we should to control the contagion. Trump has also egged on far-right protesters brandishing guns at state capitols, demanding they be allowed to eat at restaurants and get haircuts.

Some workers now have to choose whether to risk exposure to the virus in order to earn a living or to risk destitution if they follow the guidance of public health experts.

In “The Lego Movie,” Lord Business sets his evil plan in motion by making an announcement through a giant black Lego brick floating out over all the little Lego people in Bricksburg.