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One year ago, the landscape was entirely separate. Before the US presidential election, thoughtful Americans could admit the nation's serious imperfections – its inequities and disparity – however they could still perceive it as the United States. A free society. A land where constitutional order held significance. A nation guided by a honorable and ethical official, despite his elderly years and growing weakness.

Currently, as October 2025 ends, countless Americans hardly identify the land we live in. People suspected of being undocumented migrants are collected and shoved into transport, sometimes blocked from fair treatment. The East Wing of the White House – is being destroyed for an obscene dance hall. The president is persecuting his opponents or perceived antagonists and insisting the justice department hand over a huge total of taxpayer money. Uniformed troops are being sent to US urban areas under fabricated reasons. The military command, renamed the Defense Ministry, has practically liberated itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny while it uses what could amount to close to a trillion USD in public funds. Institutions, legal practices, media outlets are buckling under the president’s threats, and wealthy elites are regarded as nobility.

“America, only a few months ahead of its 250^th birthday as the globe's top democratic nation, has crossed the brink toward dictatorship and totalitarianism,” Garrett Graff, commented this past summer. “Finally, more quickly than I believed likely, it did happen in this country.”

Every morning starts with fresh terrors. And it is difficult to grasp – and painful to realize – how severely declined we have become, and the speed at which it has happened.

Yet, we understand that Trump was legitimately chosen. Following his highly troubling initial presidency and following the cautions associated with the knowledge of Project 2025 – even after the president personally declared plainly he would be a dictator solely at the start – enough Americans selected him instead of Kamala Harris.

As terrifying as the current reality may be, it's more frightening to recognize that we are just nine months under this leadership. Where will an additional three years of this decline position us? And if that timeframe transforms into a more extended duration, because there is not anyone to restrain this ruler from determining that additional tenure is required, perhaps for national security reasons?

Certainly, not everything is hopeless. There will be congressional elections the coming year that could establish an alternate political equilibrium, if Democrats retake the Senate or House of Congress. There exist elected officials who are trying to apply certain responsibility, like lawmakers currently launching an investigation into the attempted fund seizure from the justice department.

And a leadership election in 2028 could initiate us down the road to healing exactly as the prior selection placed us on this unfortunate course.

There are countless citizens demonstrating in public spaces of their cities, like they performed last weekend at democracy demonstrations.

An ex-cabinet member, wrote recently that “the great sleeping giant of America is awakening”, exactly as before after the Communist witch-hunt era in the 1950s or throughout the Vietnam war protests or during the Watergate scandal.

During those times, the tilting vessel eventually was righted.

Reich says he understands the signs of that awakening and notices it unfolding at present. For proof, he points to the widespread marches, the widespread, multi-faction opposition against a television host's removal and the almost universal defiance by media to sign military mandates they solely cover approved content.

“The dormant force consistently stays asleep before certain corruption becomes so noxious, an specific act so offensive of societal benefit, certain violence so loud, that the giant is compelled other than to stir.”

It's a positive outlook, and I value Reich’s experienced view. Maybe he’ll turn out correct.

In the meantime, the major inquiries remain: will the nation ever recover? Can it retrieve its status globally and its adherence to the rule of law?

Or do we need to admit that the 250-year-old experiment functioned for a period, and then – swiftly, totally – ended?

My pessimistic brain indicates that the latter is accurate; that everything might be finished. My hopeful heart, however, advises me that we have to attempt, by any means we can.

For me, working in journalism analysis, that involves encouraging reporters to live up, more completely, to their duty of overseeing leadership. For different individuals, it could mean working on political races, or coordinating protests, or discovering methods to safeguard ballot privileges.

Not even one year prior, we lived in a very different place. In the future? Or after another term? The fact is, we cannot predict. All we can do is to strive to persevere.

What Offers Me Hope Now

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