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One year ago, the landscape was entirely different. Before the American presidential vote, considerate Americans could recognize the nation's significant faults – its injustices and inequality – however they continued to identify it as America. A democracy. A place where the rule of law carried weight. A state guided by a dignified and decent leader, notwithstanding his elderly years and growing weakness.

These days, in late October 2025, many of us hardly identify the country we live in. Persons alleged as illegal immigrants are rounded up and shoved into vans, at times denied due process. The eastern section of the White House – is being destroyed for a grotesque event space. The leader is persecuting his opponents or alleged foes and demanding federal prosecutors transfer a massive sum of citizen dollars. Soldiers with weapons are dispatched across metropolitan centers with deceptive justifications. The military command, relabeled the Defense Ministry, has practically freed itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny as it spends potentially totaling close to a trillion USD in public funds. Universities, law firms, journalism organizations are yielding under the president’s threats, and rich magnates are handled as members of the royal family.

“The US, only a few months ahead of its quarter-millennium anniversary as the world’s leading democracy, has crossed the limit toward dictatorship and fascism,” Garrett Graff, stated recently. “Ultimately, faster than I believed likely, it transpired in this country.”

One awakes amid recent atrocities. It is challenging to understand – and distressing to accept – how deeply lost we are, and the speed at which it has happened.

However, we know that Trump was legitimately chosen. Following his highly troubling initial presidency and even after the warnings linked to the knowledge of the rightwing blueprint – despite Trump himself said publicly he intended to act as an autocrat only on the first day – sufficient voters elected him instead of the other candidate.

As terrifying as the present situation is, it's more daunting to realize that we have only been nine months into this administration. How will another 36 months of this deterioration position us? And suppose the three years transforms into a more extended duration, as there is not anyone to limit this president from opting that additional tenure is necessary, possibly for defense purposes?

Granted, not everything is hopeless. We will have legislative votes next year that could create a new balance of power, in case Democrats retake either chamber of parliament. There are elected officials who are striving to apply some accountability, such as lawmakers that are starting a probe concerning the try to cash appropriation from legal authorities.

And a national vote in the next cycle could initiate our journey toward restoration precisely as the previous vote set us on this regrettable path.

There exist numerous residents marching in the streets of their cities, similar to recent last weekend during anti-authority protests.

An ex-cabinet member, stated lately that “the great sleeping giant of America is stirring”, similar to past post-McCarthyism during the fifties or amid anti-war demonstrations or throughout the Nixon controversy.

On those occasions, the unstable nation ultimately corrected itself.

He claims he knows the indicators of that resurgence and observes it occurring at present. As evidence, he points to the widespread marches, the extensive, bipartisan pushback against a broadcaster's firing and the largely united rejection by reporters to accept the defense department’s demands they report only authorized information.

“The dormant force always remains asleep before some venality turns extremely harmful, a particular deed so contemptuous toward public welfare, specific cruelty so noisy, that the giant is compelled but to awaken.”

It’s an optimistic take, and I value Reich’s experienced view. Possibly he may prove to be right.

In the meantime, the major inquiries persist: will the nation ever recover? Can it retrieve its position globally and its adherence to the rule of law?

Or do we need to admit that the 250-year-old experiment functioned for a period, and then – abruptly, completely – collapsed?

My pessimistic brain suggests that the second option is true; that everything could be finished. My hopeful heart, though, tells me that we must try, in whatever ways available.

In my case, as an observer of the press, that involves urging journalists to live up, more thoroughly, to their mission of scrutinizing authority. For some people, it could mean participating in congressional campaigns, or organizing rallies, or discovering methods to defend ballot privileges.

Less than a year ago, we were in a separate situation. A year from now? Or after another term? The truth is, we are uncertain. Our sole course is to attempt to persevere.

What’s Giving Me Encouragement Today

The interaction I encounter with students with new media professionals, that are simultaneously visionary and practical, {always