A Tragic Change Only 12 Months Has Made in the US
One year ago, the landscape was utterly separate. Prior to the national election, considerate citizens could recognize the country's deep flaws – its injustices and imbalance – but they could still identify it as America. A democratic nation. A land where legal governance carried weight. A state guided by a dignified and decent public servant, notwithstanding his advanced age and growing weakness.
These days, as October 2025 ends, many of us hardly identify the country we inhabit. Persons believed to be unauthorized foreigners are rounded up and pushed into vehicles, sometimes denied due process. The left side of the White House – is being torn down to build a lavish dance hall. The leader is harassing his opponents or alleged foes and requesting federal prosecutors hand over a massive sum of taxpayer money. Uniformed troops are deployed across metropolitan centers on false pretexts. The Pentagon, relabeled the War Department, has effectively freed itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny as it spends possibly reaching close to a trillion USD of taxpayer money. Institutions, legal practices, news companies are submitting from leader's menaces, and rich magnates are treated like nobility.
“The US, only a few months ahead of its 250th birthday as the globe's top democratic nation, has fallen over the edge into autocracy and totalitarianism,” a noted author, stated in August. “In the end, swifter than I thought feasible, it did happen here.”
One awakes amid recent atrocities. And it is challenging to understand – and agonizing to acknowledge – how deeply lost our nation is, and the rapid pace with which it occurred.
Yet, we know that the leader was properly voted in. Following his highly troubling previous administration and even after the cautions associated with the understanding of Project 2025 – despite the president personally said publicly he planned to be a dictator solely at the start – enough Americans selected him instead of Kamala Harris.
As terrifying as the current reality are, it's more frightening to understand that we are just nine months under this leadership. Where will another 36 months of this deterioration position us? And if that period transforms into a more extended duration, since there is not anyone to stop this president from determining that additional tenure is necessary, maybe for security concerns?
Granted, not everything is hopeless. There will be congressional elections next year that may create a new governmental control, if Democrats recapture either chamber of the legislature. We have public servants who are trying to apply certain responsibility, for example representatives currently initiating an inquiry into the attempted money grab by federal prosecutors.
And a leadership election in the next cycle could start us down the road to healing exactly as last year’s election put us on this unfortunate course.
There are countless citizens protesting in public spaces of their cities, as they did recently during anti-authority protests.
A former official, wrote recently that “the dormant powerhouse of the US is stirring”, exactly as before post-McCarthyism in the 1950s or amid the Vietnam war protests or during the Watergate scandal.
In those instances, the listing ship ultimately corrected itself.
Reich says he knows the indicators of that revival and notices it unfolding currently. For proof, he references the widespread marches, the widespread, bipartisan pushback regarding a personality's dismissal and the largely united defiance by media to agree to military mandates they only publish approved content.
“The dormant force consistently stays dormant before specific greed grows too toxic, a particular deed so disrespectful of societal benefit, certain violence so noisy, that the giant is compelled other than to stir.”
It’s an optimistic take, and I appreciate the author's seasoned opinion. Maybe he’ll turn out correct.
In the meantime, the crucial issues endure: will the nation ever recover? Can it retrieve its status in the world and its commitment to the rule of law?
Or should we recognize that the historical project succeeded temporarily, and then – swiftly, totally – ended?
My cynical mind suggests that the latter is accurate; that everything could be finished. My positive feelings, though, tells me that we have to attempt, through all methods possible.
Personally, working in journalism analysis, that’s about urging journalists to live up, more fully, to their mission of scrutinizing authority. For some people, it might involve participating in congressional campaigns, or planning demonstrations, or developing approaches to safeguard ballot privileges.
Not even one year prior, we lived in a separate situation. In the future? Or after another term? The reality is, we are uncertain. Our sole course is to strive to not give up.
What Provides Me Optimism Currently
The interaction I experience in the classroom with new media professionals, who are equally idealistic and practical, {always
