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One year ago, the landscape was completely separate. Before the national election, reflective citizens could admit the country's serious imperfections – its inequities and inequality – yet they still could see it as America. A free society. A land where legal governance carried weight. A state guided by a respectable and ethical leader, notwithstanding his advanced age and growing weakness.

These days, as October 2025 ends, countless Americans scarcely know the land we inhabit. Persons suspected of being unauthorized foreigners are rounded up and shoved into vehicles, at times denied due process. The left side of the “people’s house” – is being torn down for an obscene dance hall. The president is persecuting his opponents or alleged foes and demanding the justice department hand over a huge total of citizen dollars. Soldiers with weapons are dispatched across metropolitan centers under fabricated reasons. The Pentagon, relabeled the Department of War, has – in effect – rid itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny during its expenditure of potentially totaling almost one trillion dollars in public funds. Colleges, law firms, news companies are yielding due to presidential intimidation, and wealthy elites are handled as aristocracy.

“America, only a few months ahead of its quarter-millennium anniversary as the globe's top democratic nation, has fallen over the brink into authoritarianism and extremism,” a noted author, commented in August. “Ultimately, swifter than I imagined possible, it transpired in this country.”

Every morning starts to new horrors. And it is challenging to understand – and painful to realize – how deeply lost we are, and how quickly it has happened.

Nevertheless, we understand that the leader was properly voted in. Even after his highly troubling initial presidency and even after the warnings linked to the understanding of the conservative plan – despite the president personally stated openly he would rule as a tyrant just on day one – a majority of citizens selected him over the other candidate.

While alarming as the present situation are, it's more daunting to understand that we have only been three-quarters of a year into this presidential term. What will three more years of this deterioration find us? And if that timeframe becomes something even longer, because there is no one to limit this ruler from deciding that another term is necessary, perhaps for defense purposes?

Granted, all is not lost. We will have midterm elections the coming year that could create a new governmental control, if Democrats regain either chamber of parliament. We have government representatives who are attempting to impose a degree of oversight, for example representatives that are launching an investigation concerning the try to cash appropriation from the justice department.

And a presidential election in the next cycle could start the path toward restoration exactly as the previous vote put us on this disappointing trajectory.

There exist millions of Americans demonstrating in public spaces throughout communities, similar to recent recently at democracy demonstrations.

An ex-cabinet member, stated lately that “the dormant powerhouse of the US is awakening”, just as it did following the Red Scare during the fifties or amid the sixties activism or during the Nixon controversy.

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

Reich says he knows the signals of that resurgence and observes it occurring now. As evidence, he points to the recent massive protests, the extensive, multi-faction opposition against a broadcaster's firing and the almost universal rejection by reporters to accept the defense department’s demands they solely cover authorized information.

“The slumbering entity always remains dormant until certain corruption becomes so noxious, some action so contemptuous of societal benefit, certain violence so loud, that it has no choice but to awaken.”

It’s an optimistic take, and I value his knowledgeable stance. Maybe he’ll prove to be right.

At the same time, the major inquiries endure: is the US able to ever recover? Can it retrieve its position globally and its adherence to constitutional order?

Or do we need to admit that the historical project functioned for a period, and then – abruptly, completely – collapsed?

My negative thoughts suggests that the final scenario is true; that all may indeed be finished. My hopeful heart, however, advises me that we must try, in whatever ways we can.

In my case, working in journalism analysis, that’s about pushing media professionals to commit, more completely, to their duty of overseeing leadership. For others, it may be participating in congressional campaigns, or organizing rallies, or discovering methods to defend ballot privileges.

Not even one year prior, we were in a separate situation. Twelve months later? Or after another term? The truth is, we cannot predict. Our sole course is to attempt to not give up.

What’s Giving Me Optimism Currently

The contact I encounter in the classroom with new media professionals, who are equally idealistic and grounded, {always