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One year ago, the environment was completely different. Ahead of the American presidential vote, considerate citizens could acknowledge the nation's significant faults – its inequities and inequality – yet they could still identify it as the US. A free society. A land where the rule of law meant something. A country headed by a honorable and decent official, notwithstanding his advanced age and increasing frailty.

Nowadays, as October 2025 ends, many of us scarcely know the nation we live in. People believed to be undocumented migrants are detained and shoved into vehicles, at times denied due process. The eastern section of the presidential residence – is being torn down for an obscene event space. The president is persecuting his opponents or alleged foes and requesting legal authorities hand over a huge total of public funds. Uniformed troops are dispatched across metropolitan centers with deceptive justifications. The Pentagon, renamed the Defense Ministry, has – in effect – rid itself of routine media oversight while it uses what could amount to close to a trillion USD from citizen taxes. Colleges, attorney offices, media outlets are yielding under the president’s threats, and billionaires are treated like nobility.

“America, just months before its 250-year mark as the world’s leading democracy, has crossed the limit into authoritarianism and fascism,” Garrett Graff, wrote in August. “Ultimately, swifter than I thought feasible, it did happen in this country.”

Each day begins amid recent atrocities. And it's hard to comprehend – and distressing to accept – just how far gone we are, and how quickly it has happened.

However, we understand that the president was legitimately chosen. Following his highly troubling initial presidency and despite the warnings associated with the understanding of Project 2025 – despite the leader directly said publicly he intended to act as an autocrat only on the first day – a majority of citizens elected him over Kamala Harris.

While alarming as the present situation is, it's more daunting to understand that we are just three-quarters of a year into this presidential term. Where will an additional three years of this deterioration position us? And what if the three years becomes something even longer, as there is nobody to limit this president from determining that a third term is required, perhaps for security concerns?

Admittedly, all is not lost. We will have congressional elections next year that may establish an alternate political equilibrium, in case Democrats retake one or both houses of parliament. There exist public servants who are striving to exert a degree of oversight, like representatives that are initiating an inquiry regarding the effort to money grab from legal authorities.

And a leadership election in the next cycle could start the path toward restoration precisely as last year’s election put us on this regrettable path.

There are millions of Americans marching in the streets throughout communities, like they performed recently at democracy demonstrations.

An ex-cabinet member, commented this week that “the great sleeping giant of the US is awakening”, similar to past after the Communist witch-hunt era during the fifties or amid anti-war demonstrations or in the Watergate scandal.

On those occasions, the listing ship ultimately corrected itself.

Reich says he knows the signs of that revival and notices it unfolding at present. As evidence, he cites the widespread marches, the broad, bipartisan pushback regarding a broadcaster's firing and the almost universal refusal by journalists to sign military mandates they solely cover what is sanctioned.

“The slumbering entity perpetually exists inactive till specific greed becomes so noxious, some action so offensive toward public welfare, specific cruelty so disruptive, that the giant is compelled except to rise.”

It's a hopeful perspective, and I appreciate the author's seasoned opinion. Perhaps he will be validated.

In the meantime, the big questions persist: will the nation ever recover? Can it retrieve its status in the world and its adherence to the rule of law?

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

My cynical mind indicates that the final scenario is true; that everything might be finished. My optimistic spirit, though, convinces me that we need to strive, in whatever ways we can.

Personally, as a media critic, that means encouraging reporters to live up, more thoroughly, to their mission of overseeing leadership. For some people, it might involve participating in congressional campaigns, or coordinating protests, or finding ways to protect electoral access.

Under twelve months back, we were in a very different place. A year from now? Or after another term? The reality is, we cannot predict. Our sole course is try to continue fighting.

What Provides Me Encouragement Today

The interaction I have in the classroom with young journalists, who are equally hopeful and grounded, {always