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In late October 2024, the environment was entirely different. Before the US presidential election, considerate citizens could recognize America's deep flaws – its injustices and imbalance – yet they continued to identify it as America. A free society. A place where legal governance meant something. A state headed by a respectable and upright public servant, even with his older age and declining health.

Nowadays, as October 2025 ends, many of us scarcely know the country we inhabit. Individuals suspected of being undocumented migrants are detained and pushed into vehicles, at times refused legal rights. The eastern section of the “people’s house” – is being torn down for an obscene ballroom. The leader is harassing his political rivals or alleged foes and demanding legal authorities surrender an enormous amount of citizen dollars. Soldiers with weapons are deployed into American cities with deceptive justifications. The Pentagon, relabeled the Department of War, has effectively freed itself of regular press examination during its expenditure of possibly reaching close to a trillion USD from citizen taxes. Universities, legal practices, journalism organizations are buckling due to presidential intimidation, and wealthy elites are handled as nobility.

“America, just months before its quarter-millennium anniversary as the globe's top democratic nation, has tipped over the limit into authoritarianism and extremism,” Garrett Graff, stated in August. “In the end, more quickly than I thought feasible, it occurred in America.”

Every morning starts with fresh terrors. It is hard to comprehend – and agonizing to acknowledge – how deeply lost we have become, and how quickly it unfolded.

Nevertheless, we know that Trump was duly elected. Even after his deeply disturbing initial presidency and following the warnings that came with the knowledge of the rightwing blueprint – even after Trump himself declared plainly he planned to be a dictator solely at the start – a majority of citizens chose him instead of his Democratic opponent.

Frightening as the current reality is, it's more daunting to realize that we are just several months into this administration. What will three more years of this downfall position us? And suppose the three years transforms into an prolonged era, since there is nobody to stop this president from deciding that another term is necessary, perhaps for security concerns?

Admittedly, all is not lost. There are congressional elections next year that could create a new governmental control, should Democrats regain one or both houses of the legislature. There are elected officials who are attempting to apply some accountability, like lawmakers who are starting a probe into the attempted cash appropriation by federal prosecutors.

And a national vote three years from now could initiate the path to healing precisely as the previous vote put us on this disappointing trajectory.

There exist countless citizens demonstrating in the streets of their cities, as they did in the past days during anti-authority protests.

An ex-cabinet member, stated lately that “the great sleeping giant of the US is rising”, similar to past following the Red Scare in the 1950s or throughout the sixties activism or throughout the seventies crisis.

During those times, the unstable nation eventually was righted.

Reich says he knows the signals of that revival and notices it unfolding now. For proof, he cites the large-scale demonstrations, the broad, cross-party resistance regarding a personality's dismissal and the largely united defiance by media to accept the defense department’s demands they only publish what is sanctioned.

“The slumbering entity consistently stays inactive before certain corruption becomes so noxious, some action so offensive of the common good, specific cruelty so noisy, that it is compelled but to awaken.”

It's a positive outlook, and I value the author's seasoned opinion. Perhaps he will be validated.

Meanwhile, the major inquiries remain: can America return to normalcy? Can it reclaim its status internationally and its adherence to the rule of law?

Or should we recognize that the historical project functioned for a period, and then – abruptly, completely – collapsed?

My pessimistic brain suggests that the second option is accurate; that everything might be finished. My positive feelings, nevertheless, advises me that we must try, in whatever ways we can.

In my case, as an observer of the press, that means urging journalists to commit, more fully, to their purpose of holding power to account. For different individuals, it could mean working on political races, or coordinating protests, or discovering methods to defend electoral access.

Not even one year prior, we existed in a separate situation. A year from now? Or in several years? The fact is, we are uncertain. The only option is try to not give up.

What’s Giving Me Encouragement Today

The interaction I encounter in the classroom with aspiring reporters, that are simultaneously hopeful and grounded, {always