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One year ago, the environment was utterly different. Prior to the national election, thoughtful Americans could acknowledge the country's deep flaws – its unfairness and imbalance – yet they continued to see it as the United States. A democratic nation. A country where the rule of law meant something. A nation led by a honorable and upright leader, notwithstanding his advanced age and declining health.

Nowadays, in late October 2025, numerous citizens scarcely know the land we reside in. Persons alleged as illegal immigrants are rounded up and forced into vehicles, occasionally refused legal rights. The left side of the presidential residence – is undergoing demolition for a grotesque ballroom. The president is targeting his opponents or alleged foes and insisting legal authorities surrender a massive sum of public funds. Soldiers with weapons are dispatched into American cities with deceptive justifications. The military command, relabeled the Defense Ministry, has practically freed itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny as it spends possibly reaching close to a trillion USD in public funds. Universities, legal practices, news companies are submitting from leader's menaces, and wealthy elites are handled as aristocracy.

“The US, shortly prior to its quarter-millennium anniversary as the globe's top democratic nation, has fallen over the edge toward dictatorship and fascism,” Garrett Graff, stated this past summer. “Ultimately, swifter than I thought feasible, it did happen here.”

One awakes with fresh terrors. And it's challenging to understand – and distressing to accept – how deeply lost we are, and the speed at which it unfolded.

Yet, we know that Trump was legitimately chosen. Despite his highly troubling previous administration and even after the cautions linked to the awareness of Project 2025 – following the president personally declared plainly he would act as an autocrat just on day one – a majority of citizens chose him rather than Kamala Harris.

While alarming as the current reality may be, it's more frightening to recognize that we’re only nine months into this presidential term. What will another 36 months of this deterioration leave us? And what if that period transforms into something even longer, since there is not anyone to stop this leader from determining that additional tenure is required, possibly for security concerns?

Admittedly, there is still hope. We will have legislative votes next year which might establish an alternate political equilibrium, if Democrats recapture one or both houses of the legislature. There are government representatives who are attempting to apply a degree of oversight, like representatives currently launching an investigation into the attempted fund seizure from legal authorities.

And a leadership election in the next cycle could initiate the path to healing exactly as last year’s election set us on this unfortunate course.

There are countless citizens marching in the streets of their cities, similar to recent in the past days during anti-authority protests.

An ex-cabinet member, stated lately that “the slumbering force of the nation is stirring”, just as it did after the Communist witch-hunt era in the 1950s or during the Vietnam war protests or in the seventies crisis.

On those occasions, the unstable nation ultimately corrected itself.

The author states he recognizes the signs of that awakening and notices it unfolding now. As evidence, he references the recent massive protests, the broad, bipartisan pushback to a television host's removal and the near-unanimous refusal by journalists to accept government requirements they only publish approved content.

“The slumbering entity consistently stays asleep before specific greed becomes so noxious, an specific act so offensive of societal benefit, specific cruelty so noisy, that the giant is forced except to rise.”

It’s an optimistic take, and I value Reich’s experienced view. Possibly he may turn out correct.

At the same time, the big questions endure: will the nation regain its footing? Can it reclaim its position internationally and its adherence to constitutional order?

Or must we acknowledge that the historical project worked for a while, and then – abruptly, completely – collapsed?

My negative thoughts suggests that the final scenario is accurate; that everything might be finished. My positive feelings, however, tells me that we must try, in whatever ways possible.

In my case, as an observer of the press, that’s about encouraging reporters to commit, more completely, to their mission of holding power to account. For others, it might involve working on election efforts, or planning demonstrations, or discovering methods to safeguard voting rights.

Under twelve months back, we existed in an alternate reality. In the future? Or after another term? The reality is, we are uncertain. All we can do is try to continue fighting.

What’s Giving Me Optimism Currently

The interaction I have during teaching with young journalists, who are equally visionary and practical, {always