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One year ago, the landscape was entirely distinct. Ahead of the US presidential election, thoughtful residents could admit the nation's significant faults – its unfairness and imbalance – yet they continued to perceive it as America. A democracy. A place where constitutional order held significance. A country led by a honorable and upright public servant, even with his older age and declining health.

Currently, as October 2025 ends, many of us barely recognize the country we inhabit. Individuals suspected of being illegal immigrants are collected and pushed into vans, at times blocked from fair treatment. The left side of the “people’s house” – is being destroyed for an obscene dance hall. Donald Trump is persecuting his opponents or perceived antagonists and insisting legal authorities hand over a massive sum of public funds. Armed military personnel are deployed to US urban areas on false pretexts. The defense headquarters, renamed the War Department, has effectively rid itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny while it uses what could amount to almost one trillion dollars in public funds. Colleges, legal practices, news companies are yielding under the president’s threats, and rich magnates are treated like nobility.

“The United States, only a few months ahead of its quarter-millennium anniversary as the world’s leading democracy, has fallen over the limit toward dictatorship and extremism,” an American historian, wrote in August. “In the end, more quickly than I imagined possible, it transpired here.”

Every morning starts to new horrors. It is challenging to understand – and painful to realize – just how far gone we have become, and the speed at which it has happened.

Yet, it is known that Trump was properly voted in. Even after his deeply disturbing previous administration and even after the cautions that came with the awareness of Project 2025 – even after Trump himself said publicly he would rule as a tyrant solely at the start – a majority of citizens selected him rather than the other candidate.

Frightening as the current reality are, it’s even scarier to understand that we are just three-quarters of a year under this leadership. How will an additional three years of this downfall leave us? And suppose the three years becomes something even longer, because there is nobody to restrain this president from determining that additional tenure is required, possibly for national security reasons?

Granted, not everything is hopeless. There are midterm elections the coming year that may create a new political equilibrium, if Democrats retake either chamber of the legislature. There exist elected officials who are striving to apply some accountability, such as Democratic congressmen that are initiating an inquiry regarding the effort to cash appropriation by federal prosecutors.

And a leadership election in 2028 could start the path toward restoration precisely as the prior selection set us on this regrettable path.

There are numerous residents marching in urban areas of their cities, like they performed recently in the No Kings rallies.

Robert Reich, wrote recently that “the slumbering force of the nation is awakening”, exactly as before post-McCarthyism during the fifties or during anti-war demonstrations or throughout the Watergate scandal.

On those occasions, the listing ship ultimately corrected itself.

Reich says he knows the signs of that awakening and notices it unfolding currently. As evidence, he points to the widespread marches, the broad, multi-faction opposition against a television host's removal and the almost universal refusal by journalists to accept the defense department’s demands they report only approved content.

“The slumbering entity consistently stays inactive before specific greed becomes so noxious, an specific act so offensive toward public welfare, certain violence so noisy, that he is compelled except to rise.”

It’s an optimistic take, and I appreciate the author's seasoned opinion. Maybe he’ll be validated.

Meanwhile, the crucial issues endure: will the nation regain its footing? Can it retrieve its standing in the world and its adherence to the rule of law?

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

My pessimistic brain suggests that the final scenario is true; that everything could be gone. My hopeful heart, however, convinces me that we have to attempt, in whatever ways available.

Personally, as an observer of the press, that involves pushing media professionals to live up, more completely, to their mission of scrutinizing authority. For some people, it could mean working on political races, or organizing rallies, or discovering methods to protect voting rights.

Under twelve months back, we lived in an alternate reality. Twelve months later? Or after another term? The fact is, we don’t know. Our sole course is to attempt to not give up.

What’s Giving Me Hope Now

The interaction I encounter during teaching with young journalists, who are equally visionary and practical, {always