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One year ago, the landscape was utterly distinct. Before the US presidential election, thoughtful citizens could admit the nation's deep flaws – its inequities and imbalance – but they still could see it as the United States. A free society. A place where constitutional order meant something. A state guided by a respectable and upright public servant, despite his advanced age and increasing frailty.

Currently, as October 2025 ends, many of us scarcely know the nation we live in. People suspected of being undocumented migrants are rounded up and shoved into vehicles, occasionally refused legal rights. The East Wing of the presidential residence – is undergoing demolition to build a lavish ballroom. The president is targeting his adversaries or alleged foes and requesting the justice department hand over an enormous amount of citizen dollars. Armed military personnel are dispatched across metropolitan centers on false pretexts. The Pentagon, relabeled the Defense Ministry, has practically liberated itself of routine media oversight during its expenditure of what could amount to almost one trillion dollars of taxpayer money. Universities, legal practices, news companies are buckling from leader's menaces, and billionaires are handled as nobility.

“America, only a few months ahead of its quarter-millennium anniversary as the planet's foremost free society, has fallen over the edge into autocracy and totalitarianism,” a noted author, commented recently. “Finally, more quickly than I thought feasible, it transpired here.”

One awakes amid recent atrocities. And it is difficult to grasp – and agonizing to acknowledge – how severely declined our nation is, and the speed at which it unfolded.

Nevertheless, we know that the president was legitimately chosen. Even after his profoundly alarming initial presidency and despite the warnings associated with the knowledge of Project 2025 – following Trump himself said publicly he planned to act as an autocrat solely at the start – a majority of citizens elected him rather than his Democratic opponent.

While alarming as today's circumstances are, it's more daunting to realize that we’re only several months under this leadership. How will three more years of this downfall leave us? And if that period turns into an prolonged era, because there is no one to restrain this leader from deciding that a third term is essential, perhaps for national security reasons?

Admittedly, there is still hope. There will be legislative votes next year which might establish an alternate political equilibrium, should Democrats recapture either chamber of Congress. We have government representatives who are trying to exert some accountability, such as lawmakers currently starting a probe regarding the effort to fund seizure from the justice department.

And a leadership election in the next cycle could begin the path to healing exactly as the prior selection placed us on this disappointing trajectory.

There are millions of Americans marching in urban areas throughout communities, as they did last weekend at democracy demonstrations.

Robert Reich, wrote recently that “the great sleeping giant of the nation is awakening”, just as it did following the Red Scare in that decade or amid the sixties activism or during the seventies crisis.

In those instances, the tilting vessel eventually was righted.

Reich says he recognizes the signs of that revival and observes it occurring at present. As evidence, he cites the large-scale demonstrations, the extensive, bipartisan pushback against a personality's dismissal and the almost universal refusal by journalists to sign military mandates they report only what is sanctioned.

“The sleeping giant consistently stays dormant before specific greed grows too toxic, some action so disrespectful toward public welfare, certain violence so disruptive, that the giant is forced but to awaken.”

It’s an optimistic take, and I appreciate his knowledgeable stance. Maybe he’ll prove to be right.

At the same time, the major inquiries remain: will the nation return to normalcy? Can it retrieve its position globally and its devotion to legal principles?

Or should we recognize that the 250-year-old experiment functioned for a period, and then – abruptly, completely – collapsed?

My negative thoughts suggests that the latter is correct; that everything might be lost. My hopeful heart, nevertheless, tells me that we have to attempt, in whatever ways possible.

In my case, as an observer of the press, that involves encouraging reporters to adhere, more fully, to their purpose of scrutinizing authority. For different individuals, it could mean engaging with congressional campaigns, or coordinating protests, or finding ways to protect electoral access.

Not even one year prior, we were in a separate situation. A year from now? Or in several years? The fact is, we are uncertain. The only option is to strive to continue fighting.

What’s Giving Me Hope Now

The engagement I experience with students with young journalists, who are equally idealistic and grounded, {always