A Tragic Transformation a Single Year Has Brought in America
In late October 2024, the environment was utterly distinct. Before the US presidential election, reflective residents could acknowledge the country's significant faults – its inequities and inequality – yet they continued to identify it as the United States. A democratic nation. A land where legal governance held significance. A nation headed by a honorable and ethical leader, notwithstanding his elderly years and increasing frailty.
These days, in late October 2025, countless Americans hardly identify the nation we reside in. People alleged as illegal immigrants are rounded up and pushed into vans, occasionally denied due process. The East Wing of the “people’s house” – is being destroyed to build a lavish event space. The president is persecuting his political rivals or supposed enemies and demanding legal authorities hand over a huge total of taxpayer money. Armed military personnel are dispatched into American cities on false pretexts. The defense headquarters, renamed the Department of War, has effectively freed itself of regular press examination as it spends potentially totaling almost one trillion dollars from citizen taxes. Colleges, legal practices, media outlets are submitting from leader's menaces, and rich magnates are treated like aristocracy.
“The US, only a few months ahead of its 250th birthday as the globe's top democratic nation, has crossed the limit into authoritarianism and fascism,” Garrett Graff, commented this past summer. “Finally, swifter than I believed likely, it transpired here.”
Every morning starts to new horrors. And it is difficult to grasp – and painful to realize – how severely declined we are, and how quickly it occurred.
However, it is known that Trump was legitimately chosen. Following his highly troubling first term and following the cautions associated with the understanding of the rightwing blueprint – despite the president personally declared plainly he planned to rule as a tyrant only on the first day – enough Americans elected him over Kamala Harris.
While alarming as the current reality may be, it's more frightening to recognize that we have only been nine months under this leadership. What will three more years of this deterioration find us? And what if that period transforms into something even longer, because there is not anyone to stop this president from deciding that another term is required, possibly for national security reasons?
Granted, there is still hope. We will have midterm elections in 2026 that may establish an alternate political equilibrium, should Democrats retake one or both houses of parliament. There exist public servants who are striving to impose a degree of oversight, such as representatives that are starting a probe regarding the effort to money grab by federal prosecutors.
And a presidential election three years from now could initiate the path to recovery exactly as last year’s election placed us on this unfortunate course.
There exist numerous residents protesting in the streets throughout communities, similar to recent recently during anti-authority protests.
Robert Reich, commented this week that “the dormant powerhouse of America is rising”, exactly as before post-McCarthyism during the fifties or throughout the sixties activism or in the Watergate scandal.
During those times, the unstable nation finally returned to balance.
Reich says he recognizes the indicators of that awakening and sees it happening currently. As support, he cites the recent massive protests, the widespread, cross-party resistance to a personality's dismissal and the largely united rejection by reporters to accept government requirements they solely cover authorized information.
“The sleeping giant consistently stays dormant until certain corruption turns extremely harmful, some action so disrespectful of the common good, specific cruelty so loud, that the giant is forced except to rise.”
It's a positive outlook, and I respect his knowledgeable stance. Maybe he’ll turn out correct.
In the meantime, the major inquiries remain: can America regain its footing? Is it possible to restore its status internationally and its devotion to the rule of law?
Or should we recognize that the national endeavor functioned for a period, and then – swiftly, totally – ended?
My pessimistic brain suggests that the final scenario is correct; that all may indeed be gone. My optimistic spirit, nevertheless, tells me that we have to attempt, through all methods we can.
In my case, as a media critic, that’s about encouraging reporters to live up, more fully, to their purpose of scrutinizing authority. For others, it might involve participating in political races, or organizing rallies, or developing approaches to safeguard ballot privileges.
Not even one year prior, we lived in an alternate reality. In the future? Or three years from now? The reality is, we are uncertain. Our sole course is to strive to persevere.
What Offers Me Optimism Currently
The interaction I have during teaching with aspiring reporters, who are equally idealistic and practical, {always
