A Devastating Transformation Just One Year Has Made in America
In late October 2024, the environment was completely different. Prior to the national election, considerate residents could recognize the nation's significant faults – its injustices and inequality – however they could still identify it as the United States. A free society. A country where legal governance carried weight. A nation led by a dignified and upright official, even with his advanced age and increasing frailty.
Currently, in late October 2025, countless Americans scarcely know the country we inhabit. Individuals alleged as unauthorized foreigners are detained and shoved into transport, occasionally denied due process. The East Wing of the “people’s house” – is undergoing demolition for a grotesque dance hall. Donald Trump is targeting his political rivals or supposed enemies and demanding legal authorities transfer a huge total of citizen dollars. Uniformed troops are dispatched to US urban areas on false pretexts. The military command, renamed the War Department, has practically rid itself of routine media oversight while it uses what could amount to close to a trillion USD of taxpayer money. Colleges, attorney offices, news companies are buckling from leader's menaces, and wealthy elites are treated like nobility.
“The US, just months before its 250-year mark as the planet's foremost free society, has fallen over the edge into autocracy and totalitarianism,” Garrett Graff, wrote this past summer. “In the end, more quickly than I thought feasible, it occurred here.”
Every morning starts to new horrors. And it is difficult to grasp – and painful to realize – how severely declined we have become, and the rapid pace with which it unfolded.
Nevertheless, it is known that Trump was duly elected. Following his highly troubling previous administration and following the cautions linked to the awareness of the conservative plan – following the president personally said publicly he planned to act as an autocrat just on day one – enough Americans elected him instead of the other candidate.
Frightening as the current reality are, it's more daunting to understand that we are just nine months into this administration. What will another 36 months of this decline leave us? And if that period becomes an prolonged era, because there is no one to restrain this president from deciding that a third term is required, perhaps for national security reasons?
Admittedly, all is not lost. There are legislative votes next year which might bring a different governmental control, in case Democrats retake one or both houses of parliament. There are government representatives who are trying to apply some accountability, for example representatives currently initiating an inquiry regarding the effort to cash appropriation from the justice department.
And a national vote in the next cycle could begin our journey toward restoration just as the previous vote placed us on this disappointing trajectory.
There are countless citizens marching in public spaces across municipalities, as they did recently during anti-authority protests.
A former official, stated lately that “the dormant powerhouse of the nation is rising”, exactly as before following the Red Scare in that decade or throughout the Vietnam war protests or during the seventies crisis.
On those occasions, the listing ship finally returned to balance.
Reich says he recognizes the signs of that resurgence and observes it occurring currently. For proof, he references the large-scale demonstrations, the broad, multi-faction opposition to a personality's dismissal and the largely united rejection by reporters to agree to government requirements they report only authorized information.
“The sleeping giant always remains inactive till certain corruption grows too toxic, a particular deed so contemptuous toward public welfare, some brutality so disruptive, that it is forced except to rise.”
It’s an optimistic take, and I respect his knowledgeable stance. Maybe he’ll be validated.
At the same time, the big questions endure: will the nation regain its footing? Can it reclaim its position in the world and its adherence to the rule of law?
Or should we recognize that the historical project succeeded temporarily, and then – suddenly, utterly – failed?
My negative thoughts suggests that the second option is correct; that everything could be finished. My positive feelings, though, advises me that we have to attempt, in whatever ways we can.
Personally, as an observer of the press, that involves urging journalists to adhere, more thoroughly, to their duty of overseeing leadership. For others, it could mean engaging with congressional campaigns, or organizing rallies, or developing approaches to safeguard voting rights.
Less than a year ago, we lived in a separate situation. In the future? Or in several years? The fact is, we are uncertain. The only option is try to not give up.
What’s Giving Me Hope Now
The interaction I have in the classroom with new media professionals, who are equally hopeful and realistic, {always
