A Tragic Change a Single Year Has Made in the United States
In late October 2024, the environment was completely separate. Ahead of the national election, reflective Americans could admit the nation's significant faults – its injustices and inequality – yet they still could see it as America. A free society. A land where legal governance carried weight. A state led by a honorable and decent leader, even with his advanced age and declining health.
Currently, as October 2025 ends, many of us barely recognize the nation we inhabit. People alleged as illegal immigrants are collected and forced into vehicles, occasionally refused legal rights. The eastern section of the “people’s house” – is undergoing demolition to build a lavish dance hall. The president is targeting his opponents or alleged foes and demanding federal prosecutors transfer a massive sum of public funds. Uniformed troops are being sent to US urban areas with deceptive justifications. The defense headquarters, rebranded the War Department, has practically freed itself of routine media oversight during its expenditure of potentially totaling nearly $1tn of taxpayer money. Colleges, legal practices, journalism organizations are buckling from leader's menaces, and rich magnates are regarded as members of the royal family.
“America, just months before its 250th birthday as the globe's top democratic nation, has tipped over the brink into autocracy and totalitarianism,” an American historian, stated in August. “Ultimately, more quickly than I imagined possible, it did happen in America.”
One awakes with fresh terrors. It is difficult to grasp – and painful to realize – how deeply lost our nation is, and how quickly it has happened.
Nevertheless, we know that the leader was duly elected. Even after his highly troubling first term and even after the warnings associated with the knowledge of Project 2025 – following Trump himself declared plainly he planned to act as an autocrat solely at the start – sufficient voters selected him rather than his Democratic opponent.
While alarming as today's circumstances are, it's more daunting to recognize that we’re only nine months under this leadership. How will an additional three years of this decline leave us? And what if that period transforms into a more extended duration, because there is nobody to restrain this ruler from deciding that additional tenure is essential, perhaps for national security reasons?
Admittedly, not everything is hopeless. There are congressional elections the coming year which might create a new balance of power, should Democrats recapture either chamber of the legislature. There are public servants who are attempting to exert certain responsibility, such as Democratic congressmen that are initiating an inquiry regarding the effort to cash appropriation from legal authorities.
And a leadership election three years from now could start the path to healing precisely as the prior selection set us on this disappointing trajectory.
There are countless citizens protesting in urban areas across municipalities, like they performed recently at democracy demonstrations.
Robert Reich, commented this week that “the dormant powerhouse of America is awakening”, similar to past after the Communist witch-hunt era in the 1950s or throughout the sixties activism or during the Watergate scandal.
On those occasions, the listing ship ultimately corrected itself.
The author states he understands the indicators of that revival and observes it occurring now. As evidence, he references the widespread marches, the broad, bipartisan pushback to a broadcaster's firing and the almost universal refusal by journalists to accept the defense department’s demands they only publish what is sanctioned.
“The dormant force always remains inactive till some venality turns extremely harmful, some action so contemptuous of societal benefit, specific cruelty so loud, that he is forced but to awaken.”
It's a positive outlook, and I respect his knowledgeable stance. Perhaps he will turn out correct.
In the meantime, the big questions persist: is the US able to return to normalcy? Can it reclaim its status internationally and its adherence to the rule of law?
Or must we acknowledge that the 250-year-old experiment functioned for a period, and then – suddenly, utterly – failed?
My cynical mind suggests that the latter is accurate; that all may indeed be finished. My positive feelings, however, convinces me that we have to attempt, in whatever ways possible.
Personally, working in journalism analysis, that involves encouraging reporters to adhere, more thoroughly, to their mission of scrutinizing authority. For different individuals, it may be engaging with election efforts, or coordinating protests, or finding ways to defend voting rights.
Not even one year prior, we existed in a very different place. Twelve months later? Or in several years? The reality is, we cannot predict. Our sole course is try to continue fighting.
What Offers Me Hope Now
The contact I experience during teaching with new media professionals, who are equally idealistic and realistic, {always
