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One year ago, the landscape was entirely different. Ahead of the national election, considerate residents could admit America's significant faults – its inequities and disparity – yet they could still identify it as America. A democratic nation. A land where constitutional order meant something. A state guided by a respectable and decent public servant, notwithstanding his older age and declining health.

Currently, in late October 2025, countless Americans barely recognize the nation we reside in. Persons suspected of being illegal immigrants are collected and shoved into vehicles, sometimes refused legal rights. The East Wing of the “people’s house” – is undergoing demolition to build a lavish dance hall. Donald Trump is targeting his political rivals or alleged foes and insisting the justice department hand over a massive sum of taxpayer money. Soldiers with weapons are being sent to US urban areas with deceptive justifications. The defense headquarters, rebranded the War Department, has practically freed itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny as it spends potentially totaling almost one trillion dollars of taxpayer money. Institutions, attorney offices, journalism organizations are buckling under the president’s threats, 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 world’s leading democracy, has fallen over the brink into autocracy and extremism,” an American historian, commented this past summer. “In the end, swifter than I believed likely, it transpired here.”

One awakes amid recent atrocities. And it's challenging to understand – and agonizing to acknowledge – just how far gone our nation is, and the speed at which it occurred.

Yet, it is known that Trump was legitimately chosen. Even after his profoundly alarming first term and even after the cautions associated with the knowledge of the rightwing blueprint – following the leader directly stated openly he would rule as a tyrant solely at the start – sufficient voters elected him instead of his Democratic opponent.

While alarming as today's circumstances may be, it’s even scarier to realize that we’re only three-quarters of a year into this presidential term. Where will an additional three years of this deterioration leave us? And if that period becomes something even longer, because there is no one to limit this president from opting that a third term is essential, perhaps for defense purposes?

Granted, not everything is hopeless. There are legislative votes in 2026 which might establish an alternate balance of power, if Democrats recapture the Senate or House of parliament. We have elected officials who are striving to exert certain responsibility, such as lawmakers currently launching an investigation concerning the try to fund seizure from legal authorities.

And a presidential election in 2028 could begin the path to healing exactly as last year’s election set us on this disappointing trajectory.

There are countless citizens marching in urban areas throughout communities, like they performed last weekend in the No Kings rallies.

Robert Reich, wrote recently that “the great sleeping giant of America is stirring”, exactly as before post-McCarthyism in that decade or during anti-war demonstrations or in the seventies crisis.

During those times, the listing ship eventually was righted.

Reich says he recognizes the indicators of that resurgence and sees it happening at present. As support, he points to the widespread marches, the broad, multi-faction opposition regarding a television host's removal and the near-unanimous refusal by journalists to sign the defense department’s demands they only publish authorized information.

“The sleeping giant perpetually exists inactive until specific greed becomes so noxious, some action so contemptuous toward public welfare, some brutality so disruptive, that the giant is forced other than to stir.”

It's a hopeful perspective, and I respect his knowledgeable stance. Perhaps he will turn out correct.

In the meantime, the big questions endure: can America ever recover? Can it retrieve its status internationally and its commitment to the rule of law?

Or should we recognize that the 250-year-old experiment functioned for a period, and then – swiftly, totally – ended?

My pessimistic brain suggests that the second option is true; that all may indeed be finished. My positive feelings, though, convinces me that we must try, by any means we can.

For me, working in journalism analysis, that means pushing media professionals to live up, more completely, to their mission of overseeing leadership. For some people, it could mean engaging with political races, or coordinating protests, or finding ways to defend voting rights.

Under twelve months back, we existed in an alternate reality. Twelve months later? Or in several years? The reality is, we don’t know. The only option is try to not give up.

What Provides Me Encouragement Today

The contact I encounter in the classroom with young journalists, who are equally idealistic and practical, {always