Author: Politiglue
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By August 2020, emergency measures no longer feel temporary. Rules harden, enforcement becomes uneven, and governance shifts quietly from persuasion to administration.
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By July 2020, disagreement stops feeling temporary. Fatigue hardens positions, expertise becomes aligned, and the crisis begins to organize people into lasting divides.
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By June 2020, the crisis no longer moves in sequence. Public health, politics, and social unrest collide at once, fracturing attention and testing authority in real time.
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By May 2020, the shock has faded and the argument begins. Reopening, expertise, and “what comes next” are debated before the present has stabilized, turning uncertainty itself into a political battleground.
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A plain-language glossary of the terms that reshaped public life in April 2020: flatten the curve, social distancing, essential workers, PPE, contact tracing, reopening, and the “new normal.”
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March 2020 breaks the calendar. Systems show their seams, authority fragments under pressure, and private life becomes political overnight, while language struggles to keep up with events unfolding in real time.
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In February 2020, politics still feels noisy but containable. Risk is theoretical, systems are abstract, and attention is treated as infinite, right up until the month becomes a threshold.
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Early signals consolidate into a story with shape. Institutions adjust cautiously, media reframes, and attention begins to move inward. January 2020 introduces doubt without yet declaring crisis.
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Year-end routines take over as institutions slow for the holidays. Small signals appear at the edges of attention, but there is no shared narrative yet, only information without urgency.
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An explainer on why political systems felt increasingly slow and unresponsive in late 2019, and how institutional drag shaped public trust before crisis hit.
