🔗 Share this article

One year ago, the situation was utterly distinct. Before the American presidential vote, thoughtful citizens could admit America's serious imperfections – its inequities and inequality – yet they could still identify it as the US. A free society. A land where the rule of law meant something. A nation led by a respectable and decent leader, notwithstanding his elderly years and increasing frailty.

Nowadays, as October 2025 ends, many of us scarcely know the country we inhabit. Persons believed to be illegal immigrants are collected and forced into vans, occasionally blocked from fair treatment. The left side of the presidential residence – is undergoing demolition for an obscene event space. The leader is persecuting his adversaries or perceived antagonists and demanding the justice department transfer a massive sum of public funds. Soldiers with weapons are dispatched across metropolitan centers under fabricated reasons. The defense headquarters, renamed the Department of War, has practically rid itself of regular press examination as it spends potentially totaling almost one trillion dollars in public funds. Universities, attorney offices, news companies are buckling under the president’s threats, and rich magnates are regarded as nobility.

“The US, only a few months ahead of its quarter-millennium anniversary as the globe's top democratic nation, has tipped over the brink toward dictatorship and fascism,” an American historian, stated in August. “In the end, swifter than I imagined possible, it occurred in America.”

Every morning starts to new horrors. And it's hard to comprehend – and painful to realize – how deeply lost we have become, and how quickly it has happened.

Yet, it is known that Trump was properly voted in. Following his deeply disturbing initial presidency and following the warnings linked to the awareness of the rightwing blueprint – following Trump himself said publicly he intended to rule as a tyrant solely at the start – sufficient voters chose him over Kamala Harris.

While alarming as the current reality is, it's more daunting to recognize that we’re only several months into this administration. Where will another 36 months of this downfall leave us? And suppose the three years transforms into an prolonged era, as there is not anyone to limit this president from opting that a third term is required, possibly for security concerns?

Certainly, not everything is hopeless. We will have midterm elections in 2026 that may bring a different governmental control, in case Democrats retake one or both houses of Congress. There are elected officials who are striving to apply some accountability, such as lawmakers that are launching an investigation into the attempted money grab from the justice department.

And a leadership election in 2028 could begin our journey toward restoration exactly as the previous vote set us on this disappointing trajectory.

There are millions of Americans protesting in public spaces of their cities, like they performed in the past days in the No Kings rallies.

Robert Reich, commented this week that “the slumbering force of the US is awakening”, just as it did following the Red Scare during the fifties or throughout anti-war demonstrations or throughout the seventies crisis.

On those occasions, the tilting vessel finally returned to balance.

Reich says he knows the signals of that awakening and observes it occurring now. As evidence, he points to the large-scale demonstrations, the extensive, multi-faction opposition regarding a television host's removal and the largely united defiance by media to agree to the defense department’s demands they only publish approved content.

“The slumbering entity consistently stays inactive till specific greed turns extremely harmful, some action so offensive toward public welfare, some brutality so noisy, that it is compelled but to awaken.”

It's a hopeful perspective, and I value Reich’s experienced view. Perhaps he will be validated.

At the same time, the major inquiries persist: is the US able to regain its footing? Can it reclaim its status in the world and its adherence to legal principles?

Or should we recognize that the historical project worked for a while, and then – abruptly, completely – collapsed?

My negative thoughts indicates that the second option is accurate; that all may indeed be gone. My optimistic spirit, nevertheless, convinces me that we need to strive, in whatever ways available.

For me, as an observer of the press, that involves encouraging reporters to adhere, more completely, to their duty of holding power to account. For others, it might involve participating in election efforts, or coordinating protests, or discovering methods to safeguard ballot privileges.

Less than a year ago, we existed in a very different place. A year from now? Or in several years? The truth is, we are uncertain. Our sole course is to strive to continue fighting.

What’s Giving Me Optimism Currently

The engagement I experience in the classroom with new media professionals, that are simultaneously hopeful and grounded, {always