The Tragic Transformation Just One Year Has Made in America
In late October 2024, the landscape was entirely separate. Before the national election, considerate residents could admit the country's serious imperfections – its inequities and inequality – but they continued to perceive it as America. A democracy. A land where constitutional order carried weight. A nation guided by a honorable and upright leader, notwithstanding his advanced age and increasing frailty.
These days, in late October 2025, numerous citizens barely recognize the country we reside in. Individuals suspected of being illegal immigrants are collected and pushed into transport, at times denied due process. The East Wing of the “people’s house” – is being torn down to build a lavish ballroom. Donald Trump is targeting his political rivals or supposed enemies and requesting federal prosecutors transfer a huge total of public funds. Soldiers with weapons are deployed to US urban areas on false pretexts. The Pentagon, renamed the War Department, has practically liberated itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny during its expenditure of potentially totaling close to a trillion USD from citizen taxes. Colleges, legal practices, media outlets are yielding under the president’s threats, and rich magnates are handled as nobility.
“The US, only a few months ahead of its quarter-millennium anniversary as the globe's top democratic nation, has tipped over the edge toward dictatorship and extremism,” Garrett Graff, stated this past summer. “Finally, swifter than I imagined possible, it did happen here.”
One awakes amid recent atrocities. It is difficult to grasp – and distressing to accept – how deeply lost our nation is, and the speed at which it unfolded.
However, it is known that the president was duly elected. Even after his deeply disturbing previous administration and despite the alerts associated with the knowledge of Project 2025 – following the leader directly said publicly he would act as an autocrat only on the first day – sufficient voters selected him instead of Kamala Harris.
As terrifying as the current reality is, it's more daunting to recognize that we have only been nine months under this leadership. How will another 36 months of this decline leave us? And what if that period transforms into a more extended duration, since there is not anyone to stop this ruler from deciding that additional tenure is required, maybe for defense purposes?
Admittedly, there is still hope. There will be congressional elections the coming year that may establish an alternate balance of power, should Democrats regain the Senate or House of Congress. There exist elected officials who are attempting to apply a degree of oversight, like lawmakers that are launching an investigation concerning the try to fund seizure from legal authorities.
And a presidential election in the next cycle could start our journey to healing precisely as the previous vote placed us on this unfortunate course.
We see numerous residents marching in the streets across municipalities, like they performed recently at democracy demonstrations.
Robert Reich, wrote recently that “the slumbering force of America is awakening”, just as it did following the Red Scare during the fifties or during the Vietnam war protests or during the Nixon controversy.
On those occasions, the listing ship eventually was righted.
He claims he recognizes the signals of that awakening and observes it occurring at present. As evidence, he cites the widespread marches, the widespread, multi-faction opposition to a personality's dismissal and the almost universal defiance by media to accept the defense department’s demands they only publish authorized information.
“The dormant force always remains asleep until specific greed becomes so noxious, a particular deed so offensive of the common good, some brutality so noisy, that the giant is forced but to awaken.”
It's a hopeful perspective, and I value Reich’s experienced view. Perhaps he will be validated.
In the meantime, the crucial issues endure: is the US able to regain its footing? Can it reclaim its standing in the world and its adherence to the rule of law?
Or must we acknowledge that the historical project functioned for a period, and then – swiftly, totally – ended?
My pessimistic brain indicates that the latter is accurate; that everything could be gone. My hopeful heart, though, convinces me that we need to strive, by any means we can.
In my case, as an observer of the press, that’s about encouraging reporters to adhere, more thoroughly, to their purpose of holding power to account. For others, it may be participating in political races, or planning demonstrations, or discovering methods to safeguard electoral access.
Less than a year ago, we lived in an alternate reality. In the future? Or after another term? The truth is, we cannot predict. The only option is try to not give up.
What Provides Me Encouragement Today
The engagement I encounter with students with young journalists, who are both idealistic and practical, {always
