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One year ago, the landscape was completely separate. Before the national election, reflective citizens could recognize America's significant faults – its injustices and disparity – but they continued to identify it as the US. A free society. A land where the rule of law held significance. A nation led by a honorable and decent leader, notwithstanding his advanced age and growing weakness.

Currently, as October 2025 ends, many of us scarcely know the land we reside in. People alleged as unauthorized foreigners are collected and forced into vehicles, sometimes blocked from fair treatment. The left side of the “people’s house” – is undergoing demolition to build a lavish ballroom. The leader is targeting his political rivals or perceived antagonists and insisting legal authorities surrender a massive sum of citizen dollars. Uniformed troops are deployed to US urban areas on false pretexts. The defense headquarters, rebranded the Department of War, has effectively freed itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny as it spends potentially totaling close to a trillion USD from citizen taxes. Institutions, attorney offices, journalism organizations are submitting under the president’s threats, and billionaires are treated like aristocracy.

“The US, just months before its 250-year mark as the globe's top democratic nation, has crossed the limit into authoritarianism and extremism,” an American historian, wrote recently. “Finally, faster than I believed likely, it occurred here.”

Every morning starts to new horrors. It is difficult to grasp – and agonizing to acknowledge – how severely declined we have become, and how quickly it occurred.

However, we know that the president was legitimately chosen. Despite his deeply disturbing initial presidency and despite the cautions that came with the knowledge of the rightwing blueprint – following the leader directly declared plainly he planned to rule as a tyrant just on day one – a majority of citizens chose him rather than his Democratic opponent.

Frightening as the present situation is, it's more daunting to realize that we’re only three-quarters of a year into this presidential term. How will another 36 months of this deterioration find us? And if that period becomes something even longer, because there is nobody to stop this president from deciding that additional tenure is necessary, possibly for national security reasons?

Admittedly, not everything is hopeless. There are legislative votes next year that may bring a different governmental control, if Democrats retake the Senate or House of the legislature. There are elected officials who are trying to apply a degree of oversight, for example representatives that are starting a probe regarding the effort to money grab by federal prosecutors.

And a presidential election in 2028 could initiate us down the road toward restoration exactly as the previous vote put us on this unfortunate course.

We see millions of Americans marching in public spaces across municipalities, like they performed recently in the No Kings rallies.

A former official, commented this week that “the dormant powerhouse of the nation is awakening”, similar to past following the Red Scare in the 1950s or throughout anti-war demonstrations or in the Nixon controversy.

On those occasions, the unstable nation ultimately corrected itself.

The author states he understands the indicators of that revival and notices it unfolding currently. For proof, he points to the large-scale demonstrations, the extensive, bipartisan pushback against a broadcaster's firing and the largely united rejection by reporters to accept the defense department’s demands they only publish authorized information.

“The sleeping giant perpetually exists dormant until certain corruption becomes so noxious, an specific act so offensive toward public welfare, some brutality so noisy, that the giant has no choice except to rise.”

It’s an optimistic take, and I value his knowledgeable stance. Possibly he may turn out correct.

In the meantime, the big questions remain: will the nation regain its footing? Is it possible to restore its status in the world and its devotion to the rule of law?

Or do we need to admit that the national endeavor functioned for a period, and then – abruptly, completely – collapsed?

My pessimistic brain suggests that the latter is accurate; that everything could be finished. My hopeful heart, though, advises me that we need to strive, through all methods possible.

For me, as an observer of the press, that means pushing media professionals to adhere, more fully, to their purpose of scrutinizing authority. For some people, it might involve participating in election efforts, or coordinating protests, or developing approaches to defend electoral access.

Not even one year prior, we existed in a very different place. A year from now? Or three years from now? The reality is, we don’t know. The only option is to strive to not give up.

What’s Giving Me Encouragement Today

The engagement I encounter during teaching with young journalists, that are simultaneously idealistic and realistic, {always