A Heartbreaking Shift Just One Year Has Caused in the US
In late October 2024, the situation was entirely distinct. Ahead of the national election, reflective citizens could admit the nation's serious imperfections – its unfairness and imbalance – however they continued to identify it as America. A democracy. A land where constitutional order held significance. A country headed by a honorable and decent official, notwithstanding his older age and increasing frailty.
These days, as October 2025 ends, countless Americans hardly identify the nation we inhabit. Individuals believed to be unauthorized foreigners are detained and forced into vehicles, sometimes refused legal rights. The left side of the “people’s house” – is undergoing demolition to build a lavish ballroom. Donald Trump is persecuting his opponents or alleged foes and insisting federal prosecutors hand over an enormous amount of taxpayer money. Armed military personnel are dispatched across metropolitan centers under fabricated reasons. The Pentagon, renamed the Defense Ministry, has – in effect – rid itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny during its expenditure of possibly reaching close to a trillion USD in public funds. Colleges, law firms, news companies are buckling from leader's menaces, and billionaires are handled as aristocracy.
“The United States, just months before its 250th birthday as the globe's top democratic nation, has tipped over the brink toward dictatorship and fascism,” Garrett Graff, stated recently. “Finally, more quickly than I believed likely, it transpired in America.”
One awakes to new horrors. And it is difficult to grasp – and agonizing to acknowledge – just how far gone we have become, and the speed at which it has happened.
Nevertheless, it is known that the president was duly elected. Even after his highly troubling first term and despite the warnings that came with the knowledge of the conservative plan – following Trump himself said publicly he intended to act as an autocrat only on the first day – enough Americans selected him over Kamala Harris.
Frightening as the present situation are, it’s even scarier to understand that we have only been nine months into this administration. Where will an additional three years of this decline position us? And if the three years becomes an prolonged era, as there is no one to restrain this ruler from opting that additional tenure is required, perhaps for defense purposes?
Admittedly, all is not lost. There are midterm elections in 2026 which might establish an alternate governmental control, should Democrats regain either chamber of the legislature. We have government representatives who are striving to exert a degree of oversight, such as Democratic congressmen that are starting a probe into the attempted money grab from legal authorities.
And a national vote in the next cycle could start our journey to healing just as the prior selection placed us on this disappointing trajectory.
There are millions of Americans marching in the streets throughout communities, as they did recently during anti-authority protests.
An ex-cabinet member, wrote recently that “the slumbering force of the nation is rising”, similar to past following the Red Scare during the fifties or amid the sixties activism or throughout the Nixon controversy.
In those instances, the tilting vessel eventually was righted.
He claims he knows the signals of that revival and observes it occurring currently. As support, he references the large-scale demonstrations, the widespread, bipartisan pushback against a personality's dismissal and the near-unanimous refusal by journalists to sign the defense department’s demands they report only approved content.
“The slumbering entity always remains inactive until certain corruption becomes so noxious, an specific act so disrespectful of societal benefit, some brutality so loud, that he has no choice other than to stir.”
It's a hopeful perspective, and I value his knowledgeable stance. Maybe he’ll turn out correct.
At the same time, the major inquiries endure: will the nation return to normalcy? Is it possible to restore its standing globally and its devotion to constitutional order?
Or do we need to admit that the national endeavor worked for a while, and then – suddenly, utterly – failed?
My cynical mind indicates that the second option is accurate; that everything might be finished. My hopeful heart, though, tells me that we must try, by any means we can.
For me, working in journalism analysis, that involves pushing media professionals to adhere, more thoroughly, to their purpose of holding power to account. For different individuals, it may be engaging with congressional campaigns, or planning demonstrations, or developing approaches to defend electoral access.
Less than a year ago, we were in an alternate reality. In the future? Or three years from now? The truth is, we cannot predict. Our sole course is try to continue fighting.
What Offers Me Hope Now
The engagement I encounter in the classroom with new media professionals, that are simultaneously visionary and realistic, {always
