The gap between the scale of the problem and the scale of the solution is much smaller than you think. What you think is part of the problem. What you do or don't do because of what you think adds to the scale.
But enough with happy thoughts.
The grammars on the use of the past continuous detail how events are relative to one another. While one event continues, it may be interrupted by another.
Consider the sentence "I was taking a bath when the phone rang."
To demonstrate further the relative difference between the two tenses, we can zoom in tighter on the simple past to see what might have happened while the phone was still ringing.
So one's choice between simple past and past continuous will depend on which event began first and lasted longer.
While I was preparing the break between topics, an idea happened upon me, which I place as place-marker here: An Overton Window can be adjusted by the eventual use of such language. The set up would be the past continuous events themselves and the adjustment of the window would occur in eventual response to whenever those events are continuously enough revealed in language use.
The Awning of the Cage & Aquarium
In D, the windowed Awning of O released the following: Cat's in the bag. Come get it if you want it. The readers were all, "Hwuhh?" SPOILER ALERT: The hero violated her while he was saving her, but then "did right by her" - as may still be the parlance of our times.
Spectrum Plectrum
Could
I even think the word spectrum without having lain on at least one of
them? I mean, not just one that exists to describe what might determine
one's level of ability to adjust to being a social normie; even the fringes have boundaries. Never mind that, though; let's start with politics and the handle of the metaphorical horseshoe.
If
that sentence paragraph was too much: There's a spectrum in the middle of
the political field (on the ground) that spans two metaphors: that of
voters holding their noses with one hand while voting with the other (or
just outright hitting a panic button), and those who believe they think they won't make a deal with any devil.
Another perspective on the spectrum in the diagram below includes understanding why one would pick a lesser of evils, but the rejection to the far left is one of ideological purity.
Spectra: the inbourne conspiracy
The human is by nature an agreeable individual. This doesn't mean there aren't disagreements and disagreeable people, but the most disagreeable, as unpleasant as they may be to many others, seek agreement with another mass of people, even if it's only to be projections in their head.
And for some reason: There is ample evidence in the words of the founders that the people in general were not their intended beneficiaries.
The conspiracy: no conspiracy necessary
Those who would conspire to maintain their rule over others know that their lobbyists and witting & unwitting lawmakers and official bully pulpit bureaucrats and media are built to be agreeable to at least an interest group and probably to a little more than that. This is easy to observe by way of an answer to a question from a News Talking Head about whether the Interviewee really thought the News Talking Head had been given orders from above about what to report on and what to say, the answer to which was, nobody had to give those orders because those from above had already seen the aspiring News Talking Head coming from afar, or at least from as distant as could be exposed in a job interview.
In other words, there are professional HR types who can recognize if a job candidate falls within the Overton spectrum of ideology, otherwise they'd be human resourcing for somebody else. Because the acceptable spectrum has been advertised back at them for so long, shaped by their corporate bosses' collective marketing and PR efforts that began before their parents were born, it's be as easy as playing Old Maid with everybody's cards facing up.
There's a notorious enough example, it's still talked about in today's context: In the early 2000s, it didn't require Project Mockingbird journalism (CIA infiltration of media) to, again, send US tanks into Iraq (if it required any journalism at all); there were plenty of run of the mill war advocates eager to present what they thought they believed was their own middle of the road casus belli to show how homegrown middle of the road they were, and that nobody could question their patriotism.
Naturally there were similarly self-branded patriots who opposed the war and rebuked anyone would question their loyalty because of it. Most survived with jobs because they were only influential enough to prove there's a free press.
If the metaphorical carrot is going with the flow, the corresponding stick is knowing anyone had ever gotten axed. As far as anyone's concerned, the former has the numbers in spades. Those journos who would push back on official narratives are less likely to slip through the vetting process of those for whom that particular narrative is official. It's corporate efficiency not to have to fire someone you had misread.
Time Was
I don't recall ever seeing or hearing or reading an American Billionaire described as an oligarch in American media when there were three networks. If you see that today, it's an exercise in sub-branding, maybe only in response to the emergence of the narrative via the fractured media of the 21st century.
Here we have the scale of the problem and solution in one place. It is incumbent upon the problem to prevent its solution, which can be overwhelming to the solution, which hence has fewer resources to work with.
Between the problem and the solution lies a spectrum dominated by the problem. I cannot provide a visual aid here because the spectra of points of view on an array of points of interest are so vast in scale, it would require a chart that resembles one of those animations zooming in on itself forever to reveal itself forever, and there are too many stops along the way to point out the differences, which is the scale of the problem.
Nevertheless, the solution is always at hand.
