🔗 Share this article

Twelve months back, the landscape was completely distinct. Prior to the national election, considerate Americans could recognize America's serious imperfections – its unfairness and inequality – yet they still could identify it as America. A democracy. A country where legal governance held significance. A country guided by a honorable and upright leader, notwithstanding his advanced age and growing weakness.

These days, in late October 2025, countless Americans barely recognize the land we reside in. Individuals believed to be illegal immigrants are rounded up and shoved into vans, at times denied due process. The left side of the “people’s house” – is being destroyed to build a lavish dance hall. The leader is persecuting his political rivals or perceived antagonists and insisting legal authorities surrender an enormous amount of citizen dollars. Uniformed troops are being sent across metropolitan centers on false pretexts. The Pentagon, rebranded the War Department, has practically liberated itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny during its expenditure of potentially totaling almost one trillion dollars from citizen taxes. Colleges, attorney offices, journalism organizations are buckling under the president’s threats, and rich magnates are regarded as nobility.

“The United States, just months before its 250-year mark as the planet's foremost free society, has fallen over the brink into autocracy and totalitarianism,” an American historian, commented in August. “Finally, faster than I thought feasible, it occurred in this country.”

Every morning starts amid recent atrocities. And it's hard to comprehend – and painful to realize – how deeply lost our nation is, and the speed at which it occurred.

Yet, we understand that the president was properly voted in. Even after his profoundly alarming initial presidency and following the alerts linked to the knowledge of Project 2025 – following the president personally declared plainly he planned to be a dictator only on the first day – a majority of citizens selected him over his Democratic opponent.

While alarming as today's circumstances may be, it's more daunting to realize that we have only been several months under this leadership. How will another 36 months of this deterioration leave us? And what if that period turns into a more extended duration, since there is not anyone to stop this leader from determining that another term is necessary, possibly for national security reasons?

Granted, there is still hope. There are congressional elections in 2026 which might create a new political equilibrium, should Democrats recapture the Senate or House of parliament. We have public servants who are trying to exert a degree of oversight, for example Democratic congressmen currently launching an investigation regarding the effort to fund seizure by federal prosecutors.

And a leadership election three years from now could begin the path to recovery just as the previous vote placed us on this unfortunate course.

There exist countless citizens protesting in the streets across municipalities, like they performed last weekend during anti-authority protests.

A former official, wrote recently that “the dormant powerhouse of the US is awakening”, similar to past after the Communist witch-hunt era during the fifties or during the Vietnam war protests or during the seventies crisis.

In those instances, the unstable nation finally returned to balance.

Reich says he knows the indicators of that revival and notices it unfolding at present. As support, he points to the widespread marches, the widespread, cross-party resistance against a television host's removal and the almost universal rejection by reporters to agree to government requirements they only publish approved content.

“The slumbering entity always remains dormant till specific greed grows too toxic, some action so contemptuous toward public welfare, some brutality so loud, that it is forced but to awaken.”

It's a hopeful perspective, and I appreciate his knowledgeable stance. Perhaps he will be validated.

At the same time, the major inquiries persist: can America regain its footing? Is it possible to restore its position in the world and its devotion to legal principles?

Or must we acknowledge that the historical project functioned for a period, and then – swiftly, totally – ended?

My cynical mind tells me that the final scenario is true; that everything might be lost. My optimistic spirit, nevertheless, advises me that we must try, by any means possible.

Personally, as an observer of the press, that’s about encouraging reporters to commit, more thoroughly, to their mission of scrutinizing authority. For different individuals, it may be engaging with election efforts, or coordinating protests, or discovering methods to protect voting rights.

Under twelve months back, we lived in an alternate reality. In the future? Or after another term? The truth is, we are uncertain. All we can do is to attempt to continue fighting.

What Offers Me Optimism Currently

The engagement I encounter during teaching with aspiring reporters, that are simultaneously hopeful and realistic, {always