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One year ago, the environment was utterly different. Prior to the US presidential election, reflective residents could acknowledge America's serious imperfections – its injustices and disparity – however they could still identify it as America. A democracy. A place where the rule of law held significance. A nation led by a honorable and decent official, even with his older age and increasing frailty.

Nowadays, as October 2025 ends, numerous citizens scarcely know the land we inhabit. People believed to be undocumented migrants are collected and forced into transport, sometimes denied due process. The left side of the “people’s house” – is being destroyed for an obscene event space. Donald Trump is persecuting his opponents or perceived antagonists and demanding the justice department hand over a massive sum of citizen dollars. Uniformed troops are deployed to US urban areas on false pretexts. The Pentagon, relabeled the Department of War, has – in effect – freed itself of regular press examination during its expenditure of potentially totaling almost one trillion dollars from citizen taxes. Institutions, legal practices, media outlets are buckling due to presidential intimidation, and rich magnates are treated like aristocracy.

“America, shortly prior to its 250-year mark as the globe's top democratic nation, has crossed the edge toward dictatorship and fascism,” a noted author, stated recently. “Ultimately, more quickly than I believed likely, it occurred here.”

Each day begins amid recent atrocities. It is challenging to understand – and agonizing to acknowledge – just how far gone we have become, and the rapid pace with which it occurred.

Yet, we know that the president was properly voted in. Despite his profoundly alarming initial presidency and even after the alerts that came with the knowledge of the conservative plan – despite Trump himself declared plainly he planned to act as an autocrat only on the first day – a majority of citizens chose him instead of the other candidate.

While alarming as today's circumstances are, it’s even scarier to realize that we’re only three-quarters of a year into this presidential term. What will another 36 months of this decline find us? And suppose the three years turns into an prolonged era, because there is no one to limit this ruler from deciding that a third term is required, perhaps for defense purposes?

Granted, all is not lost. There are legislative votes next year that may create a new governmental control, should Democrats retake the Senate or House of the legislature. We have public servants who are attempting to impose a degree of oversight, like Democratic congressmen that are initiating an inquiry into the attempted money grab from legal authorities.

And a national vote in the next cycle could start us down the road to healing exactly as the previous vote placed us on this disappointing trajectory.

There exist numerous residents demonstrating in the streets across municipalities, as they did in the past days at democracy demonstrations.

A former official, commented this week that “the slumbering force of the US is stirring”, exactly as before post-McCarthyism during the fifties or throughout the sixties activism or during the seventies crisis.

In those instances, the tilting vessel ultimately corrected itself.

He claims he knows the indicators of that awakening and notices it unfolding at present. For proof, he references the widespread marches, the widespread, cross-party resistance against a broadcaster's firing and the almost universal rejection by reporters to accept military mandates they solely cover approved content.

“The dormant force consistently stays dormant till certain corruption turns extremely harmful, an specific act so contemptuous of the common good, specific cruelty so disruptive, that he has no choice but to awaken.”

It's a positive outlook, and I appreciate Reich’s experienced view. Maybe he’ll prove to be right.

Meanwhile, the major inquiries persist: will the nation regain its footing? Can it retrieve its status in the world and its devotion to the rule of law?

Or should we recognize that the 250-year-old experiment succeeded temporarily, and then – swiftly, totally – ended?

My cynical mind indicates that the final scenario is accurate; that everything might be finished. My optimistic spirit, however, tells me that we have to attempt, in whatever ways possible.

In my case, as a media critic, that involves encouraging reporters to commit, more completely, to their duty of holding power to account. For others, it may be participating in political races, or planning demonstrations, or discovering methods to protect voting rights.

Not even one year prior, we were in a separate situation. In the future? Or three years from now? The fact is, we are uncertain. The only option is try to continue fighting.

What Offers Me Hope Now

The contact I experience with students with new media professionals, who are both visionary and realistic, {always