The Devastating Shift a Single Year Has Made in the US
One year ago, the environment was completely separate. Prior to the national election, reflective citizens could acknowledge the nation's significant faults – its unfairness and disparity – but they still could perceive it as the US. A democratic nation. A country where legal governance held significance. A nation headed by a honorable and upright leader, notwithstanding his advanced age and growing weakness.
Nowadays, in late October 2025, many of us scarcely know the land we reside in. Individuals suspected of being unauthorized foreigners are detained and pushed into transport, occasionally denied due process. The left side of the White House – is undergoing demolition for an obscene dance hall. The president is persecuting his political rivals or supposed enemies and insisting legal authorities hand over an enormous amount of citizen dollars. Armed military personnel are deployed across metropolitan centers with deceptive justifications. The defense headquarters, relabeled the War Department, has practically rid itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny as it spends what could amount to almost one trillion dollars in public funds. Universities, law firms, news companies are yielding under the president’s threats, and wealthy elites are handled as nobility.
“The United States, only a few months ahead of its 250th birthday as the planet's foremost free society, has crossed the limit into autocracy and fascism,” Garrett Graff, commented this past summer. “Finally, swifter than I thought feasible, it occurred in America.”
Every morning starts with fresh terrors. It is hard to comprehend – and painful to realize – how severely declined we have become, and the speed at which it unfolded.
However, we understand that Trump was legitimately chosen. Despite his highly troubling initial presidency and following the warnings that came with the knowledge of the rightwing blueprint – despite the president personally declared plainly he would be a dictator just on day one – a majority of citizens elected him over the other candidate.
Frightening as today's circumstances is, it’s even scarier to realize that we are just several months into this presidential term. How will an additional three years of this downfall position us? And suppose that period becomes something even longer, since there is nobody to limit this leader from opting that a third term is essential, perhaps for national security reasons?
Granted, not everything is hopeless. There are legislative votes the coming year that could establish an alternate political equilibrium, should Democrats retake the Senate or House of parliament. We have elected officials who are striving to apply certain responsibility, like lawmakers currently initiating an inquiry regarding the effort to money grab from the justice department.
And a national vote in 2028 could initiate us down the road toward restoration precisely as the prior selection put us on this unfortunate course.
We see millions of Americans marching in urban areas across municipalities, like they performed in the past days in the No Kings rallies.
An ex-cabinet member, stated lately that “the great sleeping giant of America is rising”, just as it did after the Communist witch-hunt era during the fifties or amid anti-war demonstrations or throughout the seventies crisis.
On those occasions, the unstable nation finally returned to balance.
Reich says he knows the indicators of that resurgence and sees it happening currently. For proof, he points to the widespread marches, the extensive, bipartisan pushback to a television host's removal and the near-unanimous defiance by media to accept government requirements they report only what is sanctioned.
“The sleeping giant perpetually exists inactive until certain corruption grows too toxic, an specific act so contemptuous toward public welfare, some brutality so disruptive, that the giant is compelled but to awaken.”
It's a positive outlook, and I respect his knowledgeable stance. Maybe he’ll prove to be right.
At the same time, the major inquiries persist: can America regain its footing? Can it reclaim its position internationally and its commitment to legal principles?
Or must we acknowledge that the historical project functioned for a period, and then – abruptly, completely – collapsed?
My negative thoughts indicates that the final scenario is accurate; that everything could be gone. My optimistic spirit, however, tells me that we have to attempt, through all methods possible.
In my case, as an observer of the press, that involves encouraging reporters to live up, more thoroughly, to their purpose of scrutinizing authority. For some people, it may be working on congressional campaigns, or coordinating protests, or developing approaches to protect electoral access.
Not even one year prior, we existed in a separate situation. Twelve months later? Or three years from now? The truth is, we cannot predict. All we can do is try to persevere.
What’s Giving Me Optimism Currently
The contact I experience during teaching with new media professionals, that are simultaneously hopeful and grounded, {always
