President Joe Biden recently ordered that all large employers force their workers to be vaccinated or else be tested once a week. The new emergency rule, to be promulgated by the Department of Labor, is well meaning. But that doesn’t mean it is wise. Resistance to this government coercion is already mounting. Twenty-five state Republican attorneys general have threatened to sue. Meanwhile, some Republican governors are enacting policies prohibiting vaccine mandates. We could soon see the surreal situation in which businesses are simultaneously required legally to mandate vaccines and banned from doing so. How have we come to such a chaotic pass? Policy failures have many chefs. Public health communication has been badly muddled. Government officials have looked down their noses at the vaccine hesitant, forgetting that disdain doesn’t sell. Social media companies have censored heterodox voices—even eminent scientists—giving rise to a paranoic sense among some that the truth is …