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Twelve months back, the environment was utterly separate. Ahead of the US presidential election, thoughtful Americans could recognize the nation's serious imperfections – its injustices and disparity – yet they still could identify it as the US. A democracy. A land where legal governance meant something. A nation guided by a honorable and ethical leader, notwithstanding his older age and increasing frailty.

Currently, in late October 2025, countless Americans scarcely know the nation we reside in. People alleged as unauthorized foreigners are detained and forced into vehicles, at times denied due process. The eastern section of the “people’s house” – is undergoing demolition to build a lavish ballroom. The president is targeting his adversaries or supposed enemies and insisting legal authorities transfer a huge total of citizen dollars. Uniformed troops are being sent across metropolitan centers under fabricated reasons. The Pentagon, relabeled the Department of War, has – in effect – liberated itself of routine media oversight while it uses potentially totaling close to a trillion USD from citizen taxes. Universities, law firms, media outlets are buckling from leader's menaces, and billionaires are treated like aristocracy.

“America, just months before its 250-year mark as the globe's top democratic nation, has crossed the edge into authoritarianism and fascism,” an American historian, stated this past summer. “Ultimately, more quickly than I believed likely, it did happen in this country.”

Each day begins with fresh terrors. It is hard to comprehend – and distressing to accept – just how far gone we are, and the rapid pace with which it unfolded.

However, we understand that the leader was duly elected. Following his highly troubling first term and following the cautions that came with the understanding of the conservative plan – despite the leader directly declared plainly he intended to rule as a tyrant only on the first day – a majority of citizens selected him over the other candidate.

While alarming as the current reality are, it's more daunting to recognize that we’re only several months into this administration. What will three more years of this downfall leave us? And suppose that period transforms into a more extended duration, as there is not anyone to limit this president from opting that a third term is necessary, maybe for defense purposes?

Certainly, there is still hope. There are legislative votes next year that may create a new balance of power, in case Democrats regain one or both houses of the legislature. There are public servants who are striving to impose certain responsibility, for example Democratic congressmen that are launching an investigation into the attempted money grab from legal authorities.

And a leadership election three years from now could initiate us down the road toward restoration just as the previous vote put us on this regrettable path.

We see countless citizens protesting in urban areas throughout communities, similar to recent last weekend in the No Kings rallies.

Robert Reich, wrote recently that “the great sleeping giant of the nation is rising”, exactly as before following the Red Scare in that decade or throughout the Vietnam war protests or in the Nixon controversy.

On those occasions, the tilting vessel eventually was righted.

The author states he knows the indicators of that awakening and notices it unfolding at present. For proof, he cites the recent massive protests, the broad, cross-party resistance against a personality's dismissal and the largely united defiance by media to sign the defense department’s demands they only publish authorized information.

“The slumbering entity consistently stays dormant before some venality grows too toxic, an specific act so offensive of the common good, certain violence so noisy, that it has no choice except to rise.”

It’s an optimistic take, and I respect his knowledgeable stance. Maybe he’ll be validated.

At the same time, the big questions remain: can America ever recover? Is it possible to restore its status in the world and its devotion to the rule of law?

Or must we acknowledge that the 250-year-old experiment worked for a while, and then – swiftly, totally – ended?

My pessimistic brain indicates that the second option is accurate; that everything could be finished. My hopeful heart, nevertheless, advises me that we have to attempt, by any means available.

Personally, as an observer of the press, that involves encouraging reporters to commit, more fully, to their mission of overseeing leadership. For others, it may be engaging with political races, or coordinating protests, or developing approaches to protect voting rights.

Not even one year prior, we were in a separate situation. In the future? Or three years from now? The reality is, we cannot predict. All we can do is try to not give up.

What’s Giving Me Encouragement Today

The contact I encounter with students with aspiring reporters, who are both visionary and practical, {always