The Tragic Shift Just One Year Has Made in America
One year ago, the landscape was utterly distinct. Prior to the American presidential vote, considerate citizens could admit the nation's serious imperfections – its unfairness and disparity – but they could still see it as America. A democracy. A country where constitutional order carried weight. A country guided by a honorable and ethical official, despite his elderly years and declining health.
Nowadays, in late October 2025, many of us scarcely know the country we inhabit. Persons believed to be unauthorized foreigners are collected and shoved into transport, at times blocked from fair treatment. The eastern section of the White House – is being destroyed for a grotesque event space. The president is harassing his political rivals or supposed enemies and demanding the justice department surrender an enormous amount of citizen dollars. Soldiers with weapons are deployed to US urban areas with deceptive justifications. The military command, renamed the War Department, has practically freed itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny as it spends possibly reaching almost one trillion dollars of taxpayer money. Institutions, law firms, journalism organizations are submitting due to presidential intimidation, and wealthy elites are handled as nobility.
“America, shortly prior to its 250th birthday as the world’s leading democracy, has tipped over the brink into authoritarianism and totalitarianism,” an American historian, stated this past summer. “Finally, faster than I imagined possible, it transpired here.”
One awakes to new horrors. And it's difficult to grasp – and agonizing to acknowledge – how deeply lost we are, and the rapid pace with which it has happened.
However, we understand that the president was properly voted in. Even after his deeply disturbing previous administration and even after the alerts that came with the awareness of the conservative plan – despite the leader directly said publicly he planned to rule as a tyrant just on day one – sufficient voters selected him rather than his Democratic opponent.
While alarming as the present situation are, it's more daunting to recognize that we are just nine months into this presidential term. Where will an additional three years of this decline position us? And what if that timeframe turns into something even longer, as there is not anyone to restrain this leader from determining that a third term is necessary, perhaps for national security reasons?
Certainly, all is not lost. There will be congressional elections next year which might bring a different balance of power, if Democrats recapture one or both houses of parliament. We have elected officials who are attempting to apply some accountability, for example Democratic congressmen that are launching an investigation concerning the try to cash appropriation from the justice department.
And a presidential election in 2028 could start us down the road toward restoration just as the previous vote set us on this unfortunate course.
We see countless citizens demonstrating in the streets across municipalities, as they did last weekend during anti-authority protests.
A former official, commented this week that “the great sleeping giant of the US is stirring”, just as it did after the Communist witch-hunt era in the 1950s or during the sixties activism or throughout the Watergate scandal.
In those instances, the listing ship eventually was righted.
He claims he understands the signs of that resurgence and notices it unfolding at present. For proof, he cites the large-scale demonstrations, the widespread, cross-party resistance against a television host's removal and the near-unanimous rejection by reporters to sign military mandates they only publish authorized information.
“The sleeping giant always remains asleep before certain corruption grows too toxic, some action so contemptuous of the common good, certain violence so loud, that the giant has no choice except to rise.”
It’s an optimistic take, and I appreciate Reich’s experienced view. Perhaps he will turn out correct.
In the meantime, the big questions persist: is the US able to ever recover? Can it reclaim its standing globally and its devotion to constitutional order?
Or should we recognize that the historical project worked for a while, and then – abruptly, completely – collapsed?
My cynical mind suggests that the final scenario is correct; that all may indeed be finished. My hopeful heart, however, tells me that we have to attempt, in whatever ways we can.
In my case, as an observer of the press, that means urging journalists to live up, more thoroughly, to their purpose of scrutinizing authority. For different individuals, it could mean engaging with election efforts, or organizing rallies, or discovering methods to defend ballot privileges.
Under twelve months back, we existed in a very different place. A year from now? Or after another term? The fact is, we are uncertain. Our sole course is try to not give up.
What Provides Me Optimism Currently
The interaction I encounter during teaching with young journalists, that are simultaneously hopeful and grounded, {always
