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In late October 2024, the landscape was completely separate. Ahead of the US presidential election, reflective citizens could admit America's serious imperfections – its injustices and inequality – but they still could perceive it as the United States. A democratic nation. A place where legal governance carried weight. A state guided by a honorable and upright official, despite his older age and increasing frailty.

Nowadays, in late October 2025, numerous citizens barely recognize the country we inhabit. People suspected of being undocumented migrants are rounded up and shoved into vans, sometimes denied due process. The East Wing of the White House – is being torn down for an obscene event space. The president is persecuting his opponents or alleged foes and requesting legal authorities transfer a massive sum of citizen dollars. Soldiers with weapons are dispatched into American cities under fabricated reasons. The defense headquarters, relabeled the War Department, has – in effect – freed itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny as it spends potentially totaling almost one trillion dollars in public funds. Universities, legal practices, journalism organizations are buckling under the president’s threats, and rich magnates are regarded as nobility.

“America, shortly prior to its 250-year mark as the world’s leading democracy, has tipped over the brink toward dictatorship and extremism,” Garrett Graff, stated recently. “Finally, more quickly than I thought feasible, it transpired here.”

Every morning starts amid recent atrocities. It is difficult to grasp – and distressing to accept – how deeply lost we are, and the rapid pace with which it unfolded.

Yet, it is known that the leader was legitimately chosen. Despite his highly troubling previous administration and even after the cautions linked to the knowledge of Project 2025 – following Trump himself declared plainly he planned to rule as a tyrant just on day one – sufficient voters selected him rather than Kamala Harris.

As terrifying as today's circumstances may be, it’s even scarier to realize that we have only been three-quarters of a year under this leadership. Where will three more years of this downfall position us? And if the three years transforms into an prolonged era, since there is nobody to limit this leader from opting that a third term is essential, possibly for security concerns?

Admittedly, not everything is hopeless. We will have legislative votes the coming year that may establish an alternate political equilibrium, in case Democrats retake the Senate or House of parliament. There are public servants who are striving to impose certain responsibility, for example lawmakers who are launching an investigation regarding the effort to money grab from legal authorities.

And a presidential election three years from now could start our journey to healing exactly as last year’s election set us on this disappointing trajectory.

We see millions of Americans marching in public spaces of their cities, similar to recent recently during anti-authority protests.

Robert Reich, commented this week that “the dormant powerhouse of America is rising”, exactly as before after the Communist witch-hunt era in that decade or amid the sixties activism or during the seventies crisis.

In those instances, the unstable nation eventually was righted.

He claims he knows the signs of that revival and observes it occurring currently. As support, he references the widespread marches, the broad, bipartisan pushback regarding a broadcaster's firing and the largely united refusal by journalists to agree to government requirements they solely cover authorized information.

“The dormant force always remains asleep until some venality grows too toxic, a particular deed so contemptuous of societal benefit, certain violence so loud, that the giant is forced other than to stir.”

It’s an optimistic take, and I appreciate Reich’s experienced view. Possibly he may prove to be right.

In the meantime, the big questions persist: is the US able to ever recover? Can it retrieve its standing globally and its devotion to the rule of law?

Or should we recognize that the national endeavor worked for a while, and then – swiftly, totally – ended?

My cynical mind tells me that the second option is true; that everything might be finished. My hopeful heart, though, convinces me that we have to attempt, in whatever ways possible.

For me, working in journalism analysis, that means urging journalists to commit, more completely, to their purpose of holding power to account. For others, it may be working on congressional campaigns, or planning demonstrations, or discovering methods to defend electoral access.

Under twelve months back, we were in a separate situation. In the future? Or in several years? The fact is, we are uncertain. Our sole course is to strive to not give up.

What’s Giving Me Optimism Currently

The contact I have in the classroom with young journalists, who are equally hopeful and realistic, {always