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Twelve months back, the situation was entirely different. Ahead of the national election, reflective citizens could acknowledge the nation's significant faults – its unfairness and inequality – however they still could identify it as the United States. A democracy. A land where the rule of law held significance. A country led by a dignified and upright leader, despite his older age and increasing frailty.

Nowadays, in late October 2025, numerous citizens barely recognize the land we inhabit. People suspected of being undocumented migrants are rounded up and pushed into vans, occasionally refused legal rights. The left side of the White House – is being torn down for a grotesque event space. Donald Trump is targeting his opponents or alleged foes and requesting federal prosecutors surrender a huge total of public funds. Armed military personnel are deployed to US urban areas under fabricated reasons. The defense headquarters, renamed the War Department, has practically freed itself of routine media oversight as it spends potentially totaling almost one trillion dollars in public funds. Universities, legal practices, news companies are submitting from leader's menaces, and wealthy elites are handled as nobility.

“The US, only a few months ahead of its 250-year mark as the globe's top democratic nation, has fallen over the limit into authoritarianism and totalitarianism,” an American historian, stated in August. “In the end, faster than I believed likely, it transpired in America.”

One awakes with fresh terrors. And it is hard to comprehend – and distressing to accept – how severely declined we have become, and the rapid pace with which it unfolded.

Nevertheless, we understand that the president was properly voted in. Even after his deeply disturbing initial presidency and even after the warnings associated with the knowledge of the rightwing blueprint – following the president personally declared plainly he intended to act as an autocrat solely at the start – a majority of citizens chose him over the other candidate.

Frightening as the present situation are, it's more frightening to understand that we’re only three-quarters of a year into this presidential term. What will three more years of this decline find us? And what if the three years turns into an prolonged era, because there is nobody to restrain this ruler from opting that a third term is required, maybe for national security reasons?

Granted, not everything is hopeless. We will have legislative votes in 2026 which might create a new political equilibrium, in case Democrats recapture either chamber of the legislature. There are public servants who are attempting to exert a degree of oversight, like lawmakers that are initiating an inquiry regarding the effort to money grab from the justice department.

And a presidential election three years from now could start us down the road to recovery just as the previous vote put us on this regrettable path.

We see numerous residents marching in the streets across municipalities, like they performed in the past days in the No Kings rallies.

A former official, wrote recently that “the slumbering force of America is awakening”, exactly as before after the Communist witch-hunt era in the 1950s or during the Vietnam war protests or throughout the Nixon controversy.

During those times, the tilting vessel finally returned to balance.

Reich says he understands the signs of that revival and sees it happening now. As support, he points to the widespread marches, the extensive, bipartisan pushback against a personality's dismissal and the almost universal rejection by reporters to sign the defense department’s demands they only publish approved content.

“The slumbering entity always remains asleep until specific greed grows too toxic, an specific act so contemptuous toward public welfare, certain violence so disruptive, that the giant is compelled other than to stir.”

It's a positive outlook, and I appreciate Reich’s experienced view. Perhaps he will prove to be right.

At the same time, the major inquiries endure: is the US able to ever recover? Is it possible to restore its status globally and its devotion to the rule of law?

Or should we recognize that the national endeavor functioned for a period, and then – suddenly, utterly – failed?

My negative thoughts suggests that the second option is correct; that everything might be lost. My optimistic spirit, though, advises me that we need to strive, in whatever ways available.

For me, as a media critic, that means encouraging reporters to adhere, more thoroughly, to their mission of overseeing leadership. For some people, it might involve participating in political races, or coordinating protests, or discovering methods to protect electoral access.

Not even one year prior, we were in a very different place. Twelve months later? Or after another term? The reality is, we cannot predict. Our sole course is to strive to continue fighting.

What’s Giving Me Hope Now

The contact I experience with students with young journalists, that are simultaneously idealistic and realistic, {always