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One year ago, the landscape was utterly different. Before the national election, considerate residents could acknowledge America's significant faults – its unfairness and inequality – yet they still could perceive it as the United States. A democracy. A place where legal governance meant something. A nation led by a respectable and decent leader, despite his elderly years and growing weakness.

Nowadays, in late October 2025, numerous citizens scarcely know the country we reside in. Individuals suspected of being illegal immigrants are collected and forced into vans, sometimes denied due process. The left side of the White House – is being torn down for an obscene ballroom. The president is harassing his adversaries or supposed enemies and demanding legal authorities hand over a huge total of citizen dollars. Armed military personnel are deployed to US urban areas on false pretexts. The defense headquarters, rebranded the Department of War, has effectively liberated itself of routine media oversight during its expenditure of possibly reaching almost one trillion dollars from citizen taxes. Institutions, attorney offices, journalism organizations are yielding under the president’s threats, and wealthy elites are regarded as nobility.

“The US, just months before its 250-year mark as the planet's foremost free society, has tipped over the brink toward dictatorship and extremism,” Garrett Graff, commented in August. “Finally, swifter than I imagined possible, it did happen in this country.”

Each day begins amid recent atrocities. It is challenging to understand – and painful to realize – how deeply lost we have become, and the rapid pace with which it has happened.

Yet, we know that Trump was legitimately chosen. Despite his profoundly alarming previous administration and following the warnings associated with the knowledge of the rightwing blueprint – even after the president personally declared plainly he intended to rule as a tyrant just on day one – sufficient voters selected him instead of his Democratic opponent.

While alarming as today's circumstances are, it's more daunting to understand that we have only been nine months into this presidential term. Where will another 36 months of this downfall position us? And what if that period transforms into an prolonged era, because there is no one to stop this leader from deciding that a third term is necessary, maybe for national security reasons?

Certainly, all is not lost. We will have congressional elections the coming year that may bring a different political equilibrium, if Democrats retake one or both houses of Congress. There are public servants who are attempting to exert certain responsibility, like Democratic congressmen that are initiating an inquiry into the attempted cash appropriation from the justice department.

And a leadership election three years from now could initiate us down the road toward restoration exactly as the prior selection placed us on this unfortunate course.

There exist numerous residents protesting in urban areas throughout communities, as they did in the past days during anti-authority protests.

Robert Reich, wrote recently that “the slumbering force of the nation is stirring”, similar to past after the Communist witch-hunt era during the fifties or amid the Vietnam war protests or in the Watergate scandal.

On those occasions, the tilting vessel eventually was righted.

He claims he recognizes the signals of that awakening and sees it happening now. As evidence, he references the large-scale demonstrations, the extensive, cross-party resistance to a broadcaster's firing and the largely united refusal by journalists to accept government requirements they solely cover authorized information.

“The sleeping giant always remains asleep until specific greed grows too toxic, an specific act so offensive of the common good, some brutality so disruptive, that the giant is forced except to rise.”

It's a positive outlook, and I appreciate Reich’s experienced view. Possibly he may be validated.

At the same time, the major inquiries persist: is the US able to return to normalcy? Can it retrieve its standing in the world and its devotion to the rule of law?

Or must we acknowledge that the 250-year-old experiment succeeded temporarily, and then – abruptly, completely – collapsed?

My pessimistic brain tells me that the final scenario is accurate; that all may indeed be finished. My positive feelings, nevertheless, tells me that we have to attempt, through all methods we can.

In my case, as a media critic, that means encouraging reporters to live up, more completely, to their purpose of holding power to account. For some people, it might involve engaging with congressional campaigns, or organizing rallies, or developing approaches to protect ballot privileges.

Less than a year ago, we were in an alternate reality. Twelve months later? Or after another term? The truth is, we are uncertain. Our sole course is to attempt to persevere.

What Offers Me Hope Now

The interaction I have during teaching with new media professionals, who are both idealistic and realistic, {always