🔗 Share this article

One year ago, the situation was entirely different. Before the US presidential election, reflective residents could acknowledge the nation's deep flaws – its unfairness and imbalance – yet they could still identify it as America. A free society. A country where constitutional order meant something. A state guided by a honorable and ethical leader, notwithstanding his older age and declining health.

Nowadays, in late October 2025, many of us barely recognize the nation we live in. Individuals alleged as illegal immigrants are collected and pushed into vans, at times blocked from fair treatment. The East Wing of the presidential residence – is being destroyed for an obscene event space. The leader is harassing his opponents or alleged foes and demanding legal authorities transfer a massive sum of public funds. Armed military personnel are being sent to US urban areas with deceptive justifications. The defense headquarters, relabeled the War Department, has – in effect – freed itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny during its expenditure of potentially totaling nearly $1tn of taxpayer money. Universities, legal practices, journalism organizations are yielding from leader's menaces, and billionaires are regarded as members of the royal family.

“The United States, only a few months ahead of its 250-year mark as the planet's foremost free society, has crossed the limit toward dictatorship and fascism,” a noted author, stated in August. “Finally, faster than I thought feasible, it did happen in America.”

One awakes amid recent atrocities. And it is hard to comprehend – and distressing to accept – how deeply lost our nation is, and how quickly it occurred.

Nevertheless, we know that the leader was properly voted in. Following his profoundly alarming initial presidency and following the cautions associated with the awareness of the rightwing blueprint – despite the leader directly said publicly he planned to act as an autocrat solely at the start – a majority of citizens elected him over his Democratic opponent.

As terrifying as the current reality may be, it's more daunting to understand that we are just several months into this presidential term. What will three more years of this downfall leave us? And what if that timeframe transforms into something even longer, since there is not anyone to restrain this leader from determining that another term is required, possibly for national security reasons?

Granted, all is not lost. We will have midterm elections in 2026 that could establish an alternate political equilibrium, in case Democrats regain one or both houses of Congress. There exist government representatives who are attempting to apply certain responsibility, for example representatives that are starting a probe into the attempted cash appropriation by federal prosecutors.

And a leadership election in the next cycle could start the path to healing exactly as last year’s election put us on this regrettable path.

We see millions of Americans protesting in the streets throughout communities, like they performed recently during anti-authority protests.

Robert Reich, commented this week that “the great sleeping giant of the nation is awakening”, just as it did post-McCarthyism in that decade or amid the Vietnam war protests or throughout the Nixon controversy.

On those occasions, the unstable nation finally returned to balance.

He claims he knows the signals of that revival and observes it occurring now. As support, he cites the widespread marches, the widespread, cross-party resistance to a broadcaster's firing and the near-unanimous refusal by journalists to agree to the defense department’s demands they solely cover what is sanctioned.

“The sleeping giant always remains inactive till specific greed becomes so noxious, an specific act so offensive of societal benefit, specific cruelty so loud, that the giant is forced but to awaken.”

It’s an optimistic take, and I respect the author's seasoned opinion. Maybe he’ll be validated.

Meanwhile, the crucial issues persist: is the US able to regain its footing? Can it retrieve its standing in the world and its devotion to legal principles?

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

My cynical mind indicates that the latter is true; that everything could be lost. My hopeful heart, nevertheless, tells me that we have to attempt, through all methods we can.

For me, as an observer of the press, that involves pushing media professionals to live up, more completely, to their duty of overseeing leadership. For different individuals, it could mean working on election efforts, or coordinating protests, or developing approaches to protect voting rights.

Not even one year prior, we lived in a separate situation. A year from now? Or three years from now? The fact is, we don’t know. The only option is to strive to persevere.

What Offers Me Optimism Currently

The interaction I experience in the classroom with aspiring reporters, who are both visionary and grounded, {always