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One year ago, the situation was completely separate. Ahead of the national election, considerate residents could recognize America's deep flaws – its inequities and inequality – yet they still could identify it as America. A free society. A land where the rule of law held significance. A state headed by a respectable and upright leader, even with his advanced age and increasing frailty.

Nowadays, as October 2025 ends, many of us scarcely know the land we inhabit. Individuals believed to be illegal immigrants are collected and pushed into vans, sometimes denied due process. The eastern section of the presidential residence – is undergoing demolition to build a lavish ballroom. The leader is harassing his opponents or supposed enemies and requesting legal authorities surrender a huge total of citizen dollars. Uniformed troops are being sent across metropolitan centers with deceptive justifications. The Pentagon, renamed the War Department, has practically freed itself of routine media oversight during its expenditure of potentially totaling nearly $1tn of taxpayer money. Institutions, law firms, journalism organizations are yielding from leader's menaces, and billionaires are regarded as members of the royal family.

“The United States, only a few months ahead of its 250-year mark as the planet's foremost free society, has tipped over the limit into authoritarianism and extremism,” Garrett Graff, commented in August. “Finally, more quickly than I thought feasible, it occurred in this country.”

Each day begins with fresh terrors. It is difficult to grasp – and painful to realize – just how far gone our nation is, and the rapid pace with which it has happened.

Yet, we know that the leader was duly elected. Even after his profoundly alarming first term and even after the alerts linked to the knowledge of the rightwing blueprint – following Trump himself declared plainly he intended to rule as a tyrant just on day one – sufficient voters chose him over his Democratic opponent.

Frightening as the current reality may be, it’s even scarier to understand that we’re only nine months under this leadership. Where will an additional three years of this decline position us? And if the three years becomes something even longer, since there is no one to restrain this leader from opting that additional tenure is essential, possibly for defense purposes?

Granted, not everything is hopeless. There will be legislative votes in 2026 which might create a new governmental control, if Democrats retake the Senate or House of parliament. There exist elected officials who are attempting to exert a degree of oversight, for example Democratic congressmen who are starting a probe regarding the effort to fund seizure from legal authorities.

And a leadership election in the next cycle could initiate the path to recovery exactly as the previous vote placed us on this regrettable path.

There are numerous residents demonstrating in urban areas of their cities, similar to recent recently at democracy demonstrations.

Robert Reich, stated lately that “the great sleeping giant of the nation is awakening”, similar to past after the Communist witch-hunt era in that decade or during the sixties activism or in the Nixon controversy.

In those instances, the tilting vessel ultimately corrected itself.

Reich says he recognizes the signals of that revival and notices it unfolding now. As support, he cites the widespread marches, the extensive, multi-faction opposition regarding a television host's removal and the largely united defiance by media to accept the defense department’s demands they solely cover approved content.

“The sleeping giant consistently stays asleep till some venality becomes so noxious, some action so disrespectful of the common good, some brutality so loud, that it has no choice except to rise.”

It’s an optimistic take, and I respect his knowledgeable stance. Perhaps he will prove to be right.

Meanwhile, the big questions remain: is the US able to return to normalcy? Can it reclaim its standing in the world and its commitment to legal principles?

Or must we acknowledge that the national endeavor succeeded temporarily, and then – suddenly, utterly – failed?

My cynical mind suggests that the latter is accurate; that everything could be lost. My positive feelings, though, convinces me that we must try, by any means possible.

Personally, as an observer of the press, that’s about encouraging reporters to commit, more fully, to their mission of scrutinizing authority. For others, it might involve participating in congressional campaigns, or coordinating protests, or finding ways to defend electoral access.

Less than a year ago, we lived in an alternate reality. A year from now? Or in several years? The truth is, we don’t know. Our sole course is to strive to not give up.

What Offers Me Optimism Currently

The engagement I have during teaching with aspiring reporters, who are equally hopeful and grounded, {always