The Heartbreaking Shift Only 12 Months Has Made in America

One year ago, the situation was utterly different. Prior to the national election, thoughtful citizens could acknowledge the nation's significant faults – its unfairness and inequality – yet they could still identify it as the United States. A free society. A land where constitutional order carried weight. A country guided by a honorable and upright public servant, notwithstanding his elderly years and increasing frailty.

Nowadays, in late October 2025, numerous citizens scarcely know the country we reside in. People believed to be unauthorized foreigners are collected and forced into vehicles, sometimes denied due process. The eastern section of the “people’s house” – is being torn down for a grotesque ballroom. The president is persecuting his political rivals or alleged foes and insisting the justice department hand over a huge total of public funds. Soldiers with weapons are being sent into American cities under fabricated reasons. The military command, renamed the Defense Ministry, has practically liberated itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny during its expenditure of potentially totaling nearly $1tn from citizen taxes. Institutions, legal practices, news companies are buckling due to presidential intimidation, 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 fallen over the limit toward dictatorship and totalitarianism,” a noted author, commented this past summer. “Finally, swifter than I believed likely, it occurred here.”

Every morning starts to new horrors. It is hard to comprehend – and distressing to accept – how severely declined our nation is, and the speed at which it has happened.

However, we understand that the leader was properly voted in. Following his profoundly alarming previous administration and following the cautions that came with the knowledge of the rightwing blueprint – following Trump himself stated openly he would act as an autocrat just on day one – sufficient voters elected him over the other candidate.

While alarming as today's circumstances are, it's more daunting to recognize that we’re only three-quarters of a year into this presidential term. Where will another 36 months of this decline leave us? And if the three years turns into something even longer, since there is nobody to limit this leader from opting that additional tenure is required, maybe for national security reasons?

Certainly, there is still hope. We will have midterm elections the coming year that could create a new political equilibrium, if Democrats recapture either chamber of the legislature. There exist government representatives who are striving to apply a degree of oversight, for example Democratic congressmen currently initiating an inquiry into the attempted fund seizure from legal authorities.

And a national vote in the next cycle could start our journey to recovery exactly as the prior selection placed us on this disappointing trajectory.

We see countless citizens protesting in urban areas of their cities, similar to recent last weekend during anti-authority protests.

Robert Reich, commented this week that “the dormant powerhouse of the US is stirring”, just as it did post-McCarthyism in that decade or amid anti-war demonstrations or throughout the Nixon controversy.

In those instances, the listing ship eventually was righted.

Reich says he understands the indicators of that revival and notices it unfolding currently. As evidence, he points to the recent massive protests, the widespread, multi-faction opposition to a broadcaster's firing and the near-unanimous defiance by media to accept the defense department’s demands they report only what is sanctioned.

“The dormant force consistently stays inactive until certain corruption grows too toxic, a particular deed so disrespectful toward public welfare, some brutality so noisy, that the giant is forced but to awaken.”

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

At the same time, the big questions persist: is the US able to return to normalcy? Can it retrieve its position internationally and its commitment to the rule of law?

Or must we acknowledge that the national endeavor succeeded temporarily, and then – abruptly, completely – collapsed?

My pessimistic brain indicates that the second option is correct; that all may indeed be gone. My hopeful heart, however, advises me that we need to strive, through all methods available.

For me, as a media critic, that means encouraging reporters to commit, more completely, to their mission of overseeing leadership. For others, it might involve working on congressional campaigns, or planning demonstrations, or developing approaches to safeguard ballot privileges.

Not even one year prior, we were in a very different place. Twelve months later? Or after another term? The reality is, we don’t know. All we can do is to strive to not give up.

What Provides Me Encouragement Today

The interaction I experience during teaching with young journalists, who are both hopeful and practical, {always