The Tragic Change Just One Year Has Made in the US
Twelve months back, the landscape was completely separate. Ahead of the national election, considerate Americans could recognize the country's deep flaws – its injustices and inequality – however they continued to identify it as the United States. A free society. A land where legal governance meant something. A nation guided by a dignified and upright leader, even with his advanced age and declining health.
Nowadays, in late October 2025, countless Americans scarcely know the land we live in. People believed to be illegal immigrants are collected and shoved into transport, sometimes blocked from fair treatment. The East Wing of the presidential residence – is undergoing demolition for a grotesque event space. The president is persecuting his political rivals or alleged foes and insisting the justice department surrender an enormous amount of taxpayer money. Soldiers with weapons are dispatched to US urban areas under fabricated reasons. The Pentagon, rebranded the War Department, has practically freed itself of regular press examination as it spends possibly reaching nearly $1tn from citizen taxes. Universities, attorney offices, news companies are submitting under the president’s threats, and billionaires are treated like members of the royal family.
“America, only a few months ahead of its 250th birthday as the globe's top democratic nation, has crossed the edge toward dictatorship and fascism,” Garrett Graff, wrote this past summer. “In the end, swifter than I thought feasible, it transpired in America.”
Every morning starts with fresh terrors. It is hard to comprehend – and distressing to accept – how severely declined we are, and the rapid pace with which it occurred.
Nevertheless, it is known that the president was duly elected. Following his highly troubling initial presidency and even after the cautions linked to the awareness of the rightwing blueprint – following the leader directly stated openly he would rule as a tyrant solely at the start – enough Americans chose him over Kamala Harris.
Frightening as the current reality may be, it's more frightening to recognize that we’re only three-quarters of a year into this presidential term. How will three more years of this deterioration position us? And suppose that period turns into an prolonged era, because there is no one to stop this ruler from determining that another term is required, perhaps for security concerns?
Admittedly, all is not lost. There are congressional elections the coming year that could establish an alternate governmental control, in case Democrats regain the Senate or House of the legislature. We have government representatives who are trying to apply a degree of oversight, for example representatives that are launching an investigation into the attempted fund seizure from the justice department.
And a leadership election three years from now could start the path toward restoration precisely as the prior selection put us on this disappointing trajectory.
We see countless citizens protesting in the streets of their cities, similar to recent recently in the No Kings rallies.
An ex-cabinet member, stated lately that “the dormant powerhouse of the US is stirring”, similar to past after the Communist witch-hunt era in the 1950s or throughout the Vietnam war protests or during the seventies crisis.
On those occasions, the unstable nation ultimately corrected itself.
Reich says he understands the indicators of that revival and sees it happening at present. As support, he references the large-scale demonstrations, the broad, bipartisan pushback to a personality's dismissal and the largely united rejection by reporters to sign government requirements they report only what is sanctioned.
“The slumbering entity perpetually exists dormant before specific greed grows too toxic, an specific act so offensive of societal benefit, certain violence so loud, that he is forced but to awaken.”
It's a positive outlook, and I value Reich’s experienced view. Perhaps he will prove to be right.
In the meantime, the big questions endure: will the nation return to normalcy? Can it retrieve its standing globally and its devotion to the rule of law?
Or do we need to admit that the national endeavor succeeded temporarily, and then – abruptly, completely – collapsed?
My cynical mind tells me that the final scenario is accurate; that everything might be lost. My positive feelings, nevertheless, advises me that we need to strive, by any means available.
Personally, as an observer of the press, that means encouraging reporters to adhere, more completely, to their duty of overseeing leadership. For others, it may be working on congressional campaigns, or organizing rallies, or discovering methods to safeguard electoral access.
Not even one year prior, we were in a very different place. Twelve months later? Or three years from now? The truth is, we cannot predict. All we can do is try to not give up.
What’s Giving Me Hope Now
The contact I encounter during teaching with new media professionals, who are equally idealistic and grounded, {always
