ANSWER: The past simple describes actions that happened in a specific moment in the past. On the other hand, the past continuous describes actions that were in progress in the past for sure.
A topic is what you choose as a subject for what you're writing. A theme is what happens in what you're writing.
<span>"decapitation of the government" is the idiom Jay Winik used in the second paragraph. The idiom's intended meaning is the severance of the top government officials from the remainder of civil society through assassination. I think the idiom was chosen to add a grave visual description of the sense of the moment.</span>
I read it a few months ago