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One year ago, the environment was completely separate. Prior to the US presidential election, thoughtful citizens could acknowledge the nation's deep flaws – its injustices and disparity – yet they could still perceive it as the US. A democracy. A land where constitutional order carried weight. A nation guided by a respectable and upright official, even with his older age and increasing frailty.

These days, as October 2025 ends, countless Americans hardly identify the nation we reside in. Persons alleged as undocumented migrants are detained and shoved into transport, occasionally blocked from fair treatment. The eastern section of the White House – is being destroyed for an obscene ballroom. The president is persecuting his political rivals or perceived antagonists and demanding federal prosecutors hand over an enormous amount of citizen dollars. Soldiers with weapons are dispatched across metropolitan centers with deceptive justifications. The Pentagon, renamed the Defense Ministry, has effectively liberated itself of regular press examination while it uses potentially totaling close to a trillion USD of taxpayer money. Universities, law firms, journalism organizations are submitting from leader's menaces, and wealthy elites are handled as aristocracy.

“America, shortly prior to its 250-year mark as the globe's top democratic nation, has crossed the edge into autocracy and totalitarianism,” Garrett Graff, stated recently. “In the end, faster than I believed likely, it transpired in America.”

One awakes with fresh terrors. And it's challenging to understand – and distressing to accept – how deeply lost our nation is, and the speed at which it occurred.

Yet, it is known that the president was properly voted in. Even after his deeply disturbing initial presidency and despite the warnings linked to the knowledge of Project 2025 – despite the leader directly stated openly he planned to be a dictator solely at the start – enough Americans chose him over Kamala Harris.

Frightening as the current reality are, it’s even scarier to realize that we are just three-quarters of a year under this leadership. How will an additional three years of this decline leave us? And if that period transforms into an prolonged era, since there is not anyone to stop this leader from opting that another term is necessary, perhaps for national security reasons?

Granted, all is not lost. There will be legislative votes in 2026 that could create a new political equilibrium, if Democrats recapture either chamber of the legislature. We have public servants who are trying to impose certain responsibility, such as Democratic congressmen that are starting a probe into the attempted fund seizure by federal prosecutors.

And a leadership election in 2028 could initiate the path to recovery precisely as the previous vote set us on this regrettable path.

There exist millions of Americans marching in public spaces of their cities, as they did last weekend during anti-authority protests.

An ex-cabinet member, wrote recently that “the slumbering force of the nation is stirring”, just as it did following the Red Scare in that decade or throughout the sixties activism or during the Watergate scandal.

During those times, the unstable nation finally returned to balance.

The author states he knows the signals of that awakening and observes it occurring now. As evidence, he cites the recent massive protests, the broad, multi-faction opposition against a personality's dismissal and the largely united refusal by journalists to sign the defense department’s demands they solely cover approved content.

“The sleeping giant perpetually exists inactive before some venality grows too toxic, an specific act so disrespectful toward public welfare, certain violence so disruptive, that the giant has no choice but to awaken.”

It's a hopeful perspective, and I respect the author's seasoned opinion. Possibly he may be validated.

Meanwhile, the big questions persist: is the US able to return to normalcy? Can it reclaim its position globally and its devotion to the rule of law?

Or should we recognize that the historical project succeeded temporarily, and then – suddenly, utterly – failed?

My cynical mind indicates that the second option is true; that everything might be gone. My optimistic spirit, however, tells me that we have to attempt, in whatever ways available.

Personally, as an observer of the press, that involves encouraging reporters to adhere, more fully, to their duty of holding power to account. For some people, it may be participating in congressional campaigns, or organizing rallies, or developing approaches to protect voting rights.

Less than a year ago, we were in an alternate reality. Twelve months later? Or in several years? The reality is, we are uncertain. The only option is to strive to not give up.

What Offers Me Encouragement Today

The contact I encounter with students with aspiring reporters, that are simultaneously idealistic and realistic, {always