As anno domini 2020 limps into another month, we are all bound to hear a thousand times, “I can’t believe it’s June already!” (or some slight variation thereof.) We heard it in May, and in April before that. This is one of the strangest side effects of the coronavirus crisis: it has wrecked our sense of time. These last months seem at once a moment and an eternity. Though it seems a lifetime ago that we went about our business undisturbed by virus or lock-down in the early days of spring, it seems too near-impossible that we have already come to June. Even stranger, it soon will be November.

In most election years past, the great impending event of November would have been dominating news cycles already. But even with two clear candidates set to face off in the fall, election news is shockingly close to radio silence. For two months, Trump’s public image was centered entirely on coronavirus response, until even that was eclipsed by nationwide riots. And America, after five long decades of trying hard, seems finally to have forgotten who Joe Biden is. As we approach the midpoint of the year, half of the country is closed and the other half is burning. The demands of the present moment seem so pressing that we can hardly bring ourselves to turn away from it to a moment months away.  …

Read more here:  crisismagazine.com/2020/does-2020-matter-anymore