75 feet below sea level postive or negative

-Negative-

▫ Below sea level means to be below zero, which are negative number so -75 feet.

:) Have a beautiful day! I hope this helps!

-Lexi-

"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.