The Tragic Shift Just One Year Has Made in America
In late October 2024, the environment was completely separate. Ahead of the national election, reflective residents could acknowledge America's serious imperfections – its inequities and inequality – but they still could perceive it as the US. A democracy. A land where constitutional order held significance. A state headed by a honorable and decent official, notwithstanding his older age and declining health.
Currently, in late October 2025, many of us barely recognize the country we live in. Individuals believed to be undocumented migrants are rounded up and shoved into vans, occasionally refused legal rights. The East Wing of the White House – is undergoing demolition to build a lavish dance hall. The leader is harassing his political rivals or alleged foes and insisting the justice department hand over a massive sum of citizen dollars. Soldiers with weapons are dispatched to US urban areas under fabricated reasons. The military command, rebranded the Defense Ministry, has – in effect – liberated itself of regular press examination as it spends possibly reaching close to a trillion USD of taxpayer money. Universities, legal practices, journalism organizations are submitting from leader's menaces, and rich magnates are regarded as nobility.
“The United States, only a few months ahead of its 250th birthday as the globe's top democratic nation, has tipped over the limit into autocracy and totalitarianism,” Garrett Graff, commented recently. “Finally, faster than I imagined possible, it did happen here.”
One awakes with fresh terrors. And it is challenging to understand – and distressing to accept – just how far gone we are, and the rapid pace with which it unfolded.
Yet, we know that the president was duly elected. Even after his deeply disturbing previous administration and despite the alerts linked to the knowledge of Project 2025 – even after the leader directly said publicly he would rule as a tyrant just on day one – sufficient voters elected him instead of his Democratic opponent.
Frightening as today's circumstances is, it's more frightening to understand that we’re only nine months into this administration. Where will an additional three years of this downfall position us? And if the three years becomes an prolonged era, because there is no one to restrain this president from deciding that another term is essential, maybe for security concerns?
Certainly, there is still hope. There will be midterm elections next year that could create a new governmental control, should Democrats recapture either chamber of Congress. There exist elected officials who are attempting to impose some accountability, such as lawmakers that are starting a probe concerning the try to money grab by federal prosecutors.
And a leadership election in the next cycle could initiate our journey toward restoration exactly as the prior selection set us on this regrettable path.
There are countless citizens marching in urban areas throughout communities, like they performed last weekend at democracy demonstrations.
A former official, stated lately that “the slumbering force of the nation is rising”, just as it did post-McCarthyism during the fifties or throughout anti-war demonstrations or in the Watergate scandal.
During those times, the unstable nation finally returned to balance.
Reich says he understands the signals of that resurgence and observes it occurring currently. For proof, he references the large-scale demonstrations, the widespread, bipartisan pushback regarding a personality's dismissal and the near-unanimous defiance by media to accept government requirements they report only approved content.
“The sleeping giant perpetually exists dormant before specific greed becomes so noxious, some action so offensive of the common good, specific cruelty so noisy, that the giant has no choice but to awaken.”
It's a hopeful perspective, and I respect his knowledgeable stance. Perhaps he will turn out correct.
In the meantime, the major inquiries remain: is the US able to ever recover? Can it retrieve its status internationally and its devotion to legal principles?
Or must we acknowledge that the 250-year-old experiment worked for a while, and then – swiftly, totally – ended?
My negative thoughts suggests that the second option is correct; that everything might be finished. My optimistic spirit, nevertheless, convinces me that we have to attempt, through all methods available.
In my case, as an observer of the press, that means pushing media professionals to commit, more thoroughly, to their mission of holding power to account. For some people, it may be engaging with election efforts, or planning demonstrations, or discovering methods to protect electoral access.
Under twelve months back, we lived in an alternate reality. In the future? Or after another term? The truth is, we don’t know. The only option is try to persevere.
What Offers Me Hope Now
The interaction I have during teaching with new media professionals, who are both visionary and realistic, {always
