So imagine waking up in January of 2020 and someone
sits you down to tell you the future. Oh, man.
You'd think they're crazy. Right. They tell you
that in the next few years, the global economy
is just going to fall completely through the
floor. A mob is going to storm the United States
Capitol. A sitting president is going to drop
out. just months before an election. And you
personally are going to struggle to buy baby
formula or toilet paper at your local grocery
store. Yeah, I mean, you probably think they
were pitching you like a dystopian movie script
or something. Exactly. But that is exactly the
historical whiplash we are diving into today.
So welcome to today's deep dive. We were taking
a really comprehensive look at the 2020s in the
United States so far. Yeah, basically starting
from January 2020 right up to today, March 2026.
Yeah. We've got this massive chronological Wikipedia
article mapping out the dizzying events of this
half decade. And our mission for you, the listener,
is to kind of help you process this absolute
fire hose of recent history. We're going to connect
the dots between the public health crises, the
economic shocks, and these profound political
pendulum swings, just to make sense of exactly
how we got here. And look, before we jump into
the timeline, we really have to acknowledge the
elephant in the room here. The source material
we you're unpacking today is, well, it's intensely
polarized. Oh, incredibly polarized. Yeah, it
covers massive political divides, spanning deeply
held viewpoints from both the left wing and the
right wing perspectives. All right. So we need
to make it absolutely clear to you, we are not
taking a side. Right, absolutely not. We are
not endorsing any of the viewpoints or the actions
or the policies we're about to discuss. Our singular
goal today is just to impartially map the terrain
of the original source material. Yeah, we're
basically just your tour guides through the chaos.
OK, let's unpack this. We have to begin where
the disruption of the decade truly started, right?
The COVID -19 pandemic. Oh, for sure. The primary
domino. Exactly. Because to really understand
the 2020s, we can't just look at it as a health
event. We have to look at it as the thing that
knocked over the global economy and completely
broke our supply chains. Yeah. If we connect
this to the bigger picture, the initial domestic
response really sets the stage for everything
that follows. I mean, when you look at the source
data from early 2020, The U .S. response was
remarkably slow. Specifically with the testing,
right? Right, the testing infrastructure. By
March 10th of 2020, fewer than 10 ,000 people
in the entire country had been tested. And even
stretching into late March, the testing rate
was only about one in every 320 inhabitants.
How is that mathematically possible? I mean,
for a country with three sources of the United
States, were the tests just like not invented
yet? Well, no, they existed globally. The World
Health Organization actually had developed functional
tests, but the CDC opted not to use them. Wait,
really? Why? Yeah, they chose instead to produce
their own domestic version. The sources note
it was a mix of like institutional pride and
rigid internal protocols. But the major problem
was the initial batch of CDC tests had manufacturing
defects. Oh, wow. Yeah, they simply didn't work.
And you combine that faulty rollout with incredibly
strict federal regulations that prevented commercial
labs from stepping in. So they couldn't even
help. Nope. The regulations severely restricted
testing capacity. So the country was essentially
flying blind, which completely obscured how fast
the virus was actually spreading. So instead
of taking a working global test, we insisted
on building our own, it broke, and the bureaucratic
red tape kept anyone else from fixing the problem.
That is terrifying. It really is. And while the
health care system was flying blind, the economic
domino fell hard and fast. Like in the last week
of February 2020, the Dow plunged over 3 ,000
points. Yeah, massive drop. And by late March,
the floor just fell out completely, bottoming
at 18 ,592. And that market crash wasn't just
fear of the virus itself, you know, it was investors
suddenly realizing how interconnected and fragile
global manufacturing truly was. Because if a
factory in Asia shuts down. Exactly. Assembly
lines in the Midwest halt. It's like the pandemic
threw a wrench into the world's engine. And two
years later, you find out the baby formula belt
snapped. That is a perfect analogy because this
supply chain crisis didn't just end in 2020.
No, I remember walking into grocery stores in
2022 and seeing entire aisles completely bare.
The baby formula shortage was insane. Right.
And the mechanics of that shortage perfectly
illustrate the systemic fragility we're talking
about. The source points out that by May 2022,
nationwide out -of -stock rates for infant formula
hit 43%. 43%. Yeah. To put that in perspective,
a normal out -of -stock rate is maybe like 2
% to 10%. How does almost half the country's
baby formula just vanish? It was a perfect storm,
basically, compounding failures. You already
had the baseline global shipping crisis started
by the pandemic, right? Shipping containers in
the wrong ports, labor shortages. Right. But
then a major domestic formula plant was shut
down due to contamination concerns, which triggered
a massive product recall. And because the U .S.
market is highly concentrated among just a few
manufacturers and strict FDA import rules make
it incredibly difficult to bring in formula from
Europe, that single factory closure broke the
entire system. Which brings it right to the listener's
kitchen table. I mean, what began as this abstract
macro level global health crisis transformed
into a desperate reality for families staring
at bare shelves in Delaware, Kansas, Tennessee.
The abstract became frighteningly local. Totally.
But, you know, physical supply chains weren't
the only things breaking under the pressure.
The pandemic was this massive societal pressure
cooker. You had a population locked inside economically
anxious, glued to their screens. Oh, yeah. And
that immense stress. fundamentally fractured
the nation's civic and institutional foundations.
Which acts as the flash point for the massive
social upheaval we saw. Like in May 2020, following
the murder of George Floyd by a police officer
in Minneapolis, protests erupted and just spread
globally. The sheer scale of the mobilization
was staggering. It really was. The article notes
that over 74 ,000 National Guard personnel were
activated to handle the unrest. And by early
June, there were at least 11 ,000 arrests. The
system was being stress tested in real time.
And that level of civic friction bled directly
into the institutional friction following the
2020 presidential election. Right. We saw an
aggressive, organized effort by Donald Trump
and his allies to overturn the election results.
The sources repeatedly describe this campaign
as the, quote, big lie. And the mechanism of
that effort wasn't just rhetoric. It was aimed
directly at the constitutional process of certifying
the vote, culminating in the January 6th Capitol
attack. Yeah, a really dark day. Roughly 2000
to 2500 rioters physically breached the Capitol
building. 138 police officers were injured and,
tragically, four officers who responded that
day later died by suicide. It is a profound moment
of institutional vulnerability. And that friction
didn't just stop at the Capitol doors. It continued
into the judicial and legislative branches over
the next few years. Like the Supreme Court. Exactly.
Consider the landmark Dobbs decision in June
2022. Voting 6 -3 to overturn Roe v. Wade. Yes.
And the mechanism of that decision is vital to
understand. By declaring that the Constitution
does not grant a right to abortion, the court
didn't outlaw it federally. They rewrote a half
century of legal precedent to return that authority
entirely to individual states. Right. So structurally,
it meant your medical rights could change overnight
just by driving across a state line, a massive
decentralization of rights. Exactly. And while
the courts are shifting power to the states,
Congress itself essentially grinds to a halt.
Look at 2023. Oh, the Speaker of the House vote.
Yeah. The election of Kevin McCarthy took a historic
15 rounds of voting. 15 rounds. The ruling party
was so internally divided they couldn't even
agree on who gets to hold the gavel. So what
does this all mean for the average person? I
mean, with institutions from the police to the
Supreme Court to the Capitol itself under fire,
how does a society actually function day to day
when the rule book is being rewritten in real
time? Well, it shows how deeply polarized the
nation had become. But there is a fascinating
contradiction to note here. What's that? The
system was pushed to its absolute constitutional
brink. Right. The Capitol breached. The Speaker's
gavel held hostage. Monumental judicial precedents
reversed. But the levers of government ultimately
kept moving. That's true. The electoral vote
was certified. The courts continued to issue
rulings. The machinery didn't completely shatter,
but it limped forward with historically deep
divides and a massive loss of public trust. And
it was in response to those deep societal fractures
that the electorate swung the pendulum in the
2020 election. They elected Joe Biden, making
him the oldest president in history at the time,
seemingly looking for stability, you know, legislative
repair. But the reality of his term proved to
be vastly more complicated. You can't just hit
reset on a highly fractured environment. No,
you really can't. Mechanically, the Biden administration
brought sweeping legislative ambitions to try
and patch the country back together. And on paper,
his legislative wins were massive. I mean, you
had the $1 .9 trillion American Rescue Plan,
the $1 trillion Infrastructure Act, the Inflation
Reduction Act. But the macroeconomic data looked
historically strong. He oversaw the strongest
economic recovery of any G7 nation, hitting record
low unemployment and creating over 16 million
jobs. But those top line numbers were constantly
colliding with the lived reality of the voter.
I mean, his term was hampered by highly visible
crises. the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal. Exactly.
And the internal party gridlock where his build
back better plan was effectively killed by Senator
Joe Manchin. And then, of course, the soaring
inflation. Yeah, the inflation. That's where
the macro really meets the micro. National gas
prices hit an all time high of five dollars and
two cents a gallon in June twenty twenty two.
It sounds like Biden was trying to fully renovate
a house while the kitchen was actively on fire.
What's fascinating here is that exact disconnect.
You have this massive legislative and job creation
milestone, yet median wages stagnated. Wealth
inequality actually grew for the top point one
percent. So the spreadsheet says the economy
is booming, but the wallet says something entirely
different. Exactly. Everyday inflation left voters
feeling incredibly economically insecure. And
it was compounded by deeply divisive policies,
like the $300 billion student loan forgiveness
plan. Right, the 10k to 20k per borrower. Yeah.
And ultimately, mounting concerns over Biden's
age and mental fitness led him to withdraw from
the 2024 race. His preferred successor, Kamala
Harris, lost the election and he ended his term
with sweeping pardons for his family and critics.
Which brings us to the most unprecedented pendulum
swing yet, Trump 2 .0. Sitting here in early
2026, it's wild. Donald Trump winning the 2024
election made him the second U .S. president
to serve non -consecutive terms. And the path
he took back to the White House was frankly shocking,
including surviving an assassination attempt
at a 2024 rally in Pennsylvania. Yeah, where
he sustained that right ear injury and two people
died, including the shooter. Right. And he was
inaugurated as the 47th president at age 78.
So he's now the oldest person to become president
and the first with a felony conviction. Here's
where it gets really interesting, though. The
sheer velocity of his second term in 2025. Velocity
is definitely the key word. Mechanically, the
Trump administration recognized that relying
on Congress is slow. So they executed a rapid
fire expansion of executive power. How rapid
are we talking? During 2025 alone, he signed
225 executive orders. Wow. Yeah, that is the
most in a single year since FDR. He established
the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE,
briefly overseen by Elon Musk. Right. To bypass
traditional civil service protections. Exactly.
Mass deportations. Aggressive tariff increases
that actually caused the Dow to fall 900 points
in April 2025. And we need to connect that to
you, the listener, for a second. Tariffs aren't
just like attacks on another country. Mechanically,
they are tax paid by the domestic importer, which
almost always means the cost of your electronics,
your cars and your groceries goes up. It's an
immediate kitchen table impact. And his foreign
policy utilized that same bypass of bureaucracy.
Right. Moving incredibly fast. Geopolitical whiplash,
really. By October 2025, he signed a Gaza ceasefire.
He withdrew from the WHO and the Paris Accords
again. authorized lethal strikes on Caribbean
drug traffickers, ordered an operation to capture
Venezuela's Maduro, and just recently, in February
2026, launched a major attack on Iran alongside
Israel. targeting the Supreme Leader. It's just
so much, so fast. But how does an administration
that actively bypasses traditional bureaucracy
and constantly clashes with the courts impact
the future blueprint of American governance?
Because judges were repeatedly finding his actions
illegal and the administration was accused of
defying court oversight. This raises an important
question. The defining characteristic of Trump's
second term, as noted by the sources, is this
relentless expansion of presidential power and
friction with the courts. Right. And if we look
at this purely structurally, whether you agree
with the policies or not, the executive branch
in 2025 and 2026 is fundamentally challenging
the traditional boundaries of the checks and
balances system. So bringing this all back to
you, the listener. Sitting here in March 2026,
this compressed timeline proves that history
isn't just something safely contained in a textbook.
Not at all. From the price of gas to the availability
of baby formula, from supply chain crashes to
shifting interpretations of constitutional rights,
the ping -ponging political pendulum directly
impacts your daily life. It really does. And
as we process all this systemic fragility, there
is one final stark event from the source material
that we haven't touched on yet. Yeah, I think
it serves as a powerful anchor. In March 2024,
the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed.
Oh, wow. Yes. It was struck by that massive container
ship that lost power. Yes. Six people were tragically
killed and structurally it blocked the port for
11 weeks. It will cost up to five point two billion
dollars to replace by 2030. It's just wild to
think about one mechanical failure on one ship
paralyzed a massive economic artery. Exactly.
I want to leave everyone with a final thought
to mull over. In a decade obsessed with ideological
battles and who sits in the Oval Office, the
bridge collapse is a glaring metaphor. Right.
If a single mechanical failure can sever a massive
economic artery, how resilient is the actual
physical foundation holding up the country? Are
we spending too much time arguing over who holds
the gavel and not enough time checking the concrete?
Wow. That is definitely something to think about
the next time you drive over a bridge or walk
into a grocery store. Thank you for joining us
on this deep dive.