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One year ago, the situation was utterly different. Prior to the national election, considerate Americans could admit America's significant faults – its injustices and disparity – but they could still see it as the United States. A free society. A country where legal governance meant something. A state guided by a respectable and decent leader, notwithstanding his older age and declining health.

These days, in late October 2025, many of us hardly identify the land we live in. Persons believed to be illegal immigrants are rounded up and forced into vehicles, sometimes denied due process. The East Wing of the presidential residence – is being torn down to build a lavish dance hall. The leader is targeting his political rivals or perceived antagonists and insisting legal authorities surrender a huge total of taxpayer money. Armed military personnel are being sent into American cities on false pretexts. The defense headquarters, renamed the War Department, has effectively liberated itself of routine media oversight as it spends possibly reaching almost one trillion dollars of taxpayer money. Universities, legal practices, media outlets are buckling due to presidential intimidation, and wealthy elites are handled as nobility.

“The United States, shortly prior to its quarter-millennium anniversary as the globe's top democratic nation, has crossed the limit into autocracy and extremism,” Garrett Graff, stated recently. “In the end, more quickly than I thought feasible, it transpired in this country.”

One awakes with fresh terrors. And it's hard to comprehend – and distressing to accept – how severely declined we are, and the speed at which it has happened.

Yet, it is known that the leader was duly elected. Even after his profoundly alarming previous administration and despite the warnings associated with the awareness of the conservative plan – even after Trump himself stated openly he would rule as a tyrant solely at the start – enough Americans elected him over Kamala Harris.

Frightening as the present situation are, it’s even scarier to recognize that we are just three-quarters of a year into this presidential term. How will three more years of this decline leave us? And suppose that period becomes an prolonged era, since there is nobody to stop this president from deciding that a third term is essential, perhaps for defense purposes?

Granted, not everything is hopeless. There will be congressional elections the coming year that may create a new balance of power, should Democrats retake either chamber of parliament. There exist elected officials who are attempting to exert certain responsibility, like lawmakers who are starting a probe concerning the try to cash appropriation from legal authorities.

And a presidential election in the next cycle could start the path to healing precisely as last year’s election placed us on this disappointing trajectory.

There are countless citizens demonstrating in public spaces across municipalities, like they performed in the past days during anti-authority protests.

An ex-cabinet member, stated lately that “the great sleeping giant of the US is stirring”, similar to past after the Communist witch-hunt era in that decade or during the sixties activism or throughout the Watergate scandal.

In those instances, the tilting vessel eventually was righted.

Reich says he recognizes the indicators of that resurgence and notices it unfolding at present. As evidence, he references the large-scale demonstrations, the broad, multi-faction opposition against a broadcaster's firing and the largely united refusal by journalists to accept government requirements they solely cover authorized information.

“The sleeping giant perpetually exists inactive till specific greed turns extremely harmful, some action so disrespectful toward public welfare, specific cruelty so noisy, that it is forced except to rise.”

It’s an optimistic take, and I appreciate his knowledgeable stance. Possibly he may be validated.

At the same time, the major inquiries persist: is the US able to return to normalcy? Is it possible to restore its standing in the world and its devotion to constitutional order?

Or should we recognize that the 250-year-old experiment succeeded temporarily, and then – swiftly, totally – ended?

My cynical mind indicates that the latter is true; that everything might be gone. My positive feelings, though, tells me that we have to attempt, in whatever ways possible.

Personally, as a media critic, that means pushing media professionals to adhere, more thoroughly, to their purpose of scrutinizing authority. For others, it could mean engaging with political races, or organizing rallies, or finding ways to protect electoral access.

Less than a year ago, we existed in a separate situation. Twelve months later? Or three years from now? The fact is, we don’t know. All we can do is to strive to persevere.

What Provides Me Hope Now

The engagement I encounter during teaching with young journalists, who are both visionary and practical, {always