A Tragic Change Just One Year Has Caused in the United States
One year ago, the environment was completely separate. Ahead of the national election, reflective residents could admit the country's deep flaws – its inequities and inequality – yet they continued to see it as America. A democratic nation. A place where legal governance carried weight. A country guided by a honorable and ethical leader, notwithstanding his elderly years and increasing frailty.
Nowadays, in late October 2025, numerous citizens hardly identify the nation we inhabit. People alleged as undocumented migrants are collected and forced into vans, occasionally refused legal rights. The eastern section of the White House – is being destroyed for an obscene event space. The leader is harassing his political rivals or supposed enemies and demanding federal prosecutors hand over a huge total of taxpayer money. Armed military personnel are dispatched into American cities on false pretexts. The defense headquarters, renamed the War Department, has – in effect – rid itself of routine media oversight as it spends possibly reaching nearly $1tn from citizen taxes. Colleges, legal practices, journalism organizations are yielding due to presidential intimidation, and billionaires are regarded as members of the royal family.
“The United States, shortly prior to its 250th birthday as the planet's foremost free society, has fallen over the brink toward dictatorship and totalitarianism,” an American historian, commented in August. “In the end, faster than I believed likely, it occurred in this country.”
Each day begins with fresh terrors. And it is difficult to grasp – and distressing to accept – how deeply lost we have become, and how quickly it has happened.
However, we understand that the leader was properly voted in. Even after his profoundly alarming previous administration and following the warnings that came with the awareness of the rightwing blueprint – despite the leader directly stated openly he intended to act as an autocrat only on the first day – sufficient voters elected him instead of the other candidate.
Frightening as the current reality may be, it's more daunting to understand that we’re only nine months into this presidential term. Where will another 36 months of this decline find us? And suppose that timeframe turns into a more extended duration, as there is no one to stop this president from deciding that a third term is necessary, possibly for security concerns?
Admittedly, all is not lost. There will be congressional elections next year that could bring a different governmental control, in case Democrats regain one or both houses of Congress. We have public servants who are striving to exert some accountability, such as representatives who are launching an investigation regarding the effort to money grab from legal authorities.
And a presidential election three years from now could start our journey to recovery exactly as the previous vote placed us on this disappointing trajectory.
There are countless citizens demonstrating in urban areas of their cities, as they did in the past days during anti-authority protests.
Robert Reich, wrote recently that “the great sleeping giant of the US is awakening”, just as it did post-McCarthyism in that decade or amid the sixties activism or in the Watergate scandal.
On those occasions, the tilting vessel finally returned to balance.
Reich says he knows the signs of that resurgence and sees it happening at present. For proof, he points to the recent massive protests, the widespread, multi-faction opposition regarding a television host's removal and the near-unanimous rejection by reporters to accept military mandates they only publish what is sanctioned.
“The slumbering entity perpetually exists asleep until specific greed turns extremely harmful, an specific act so contemptuous of societal benefit, certain violence so disruptive, that the giant has no choice except to rise.”
It's a hopeful perspective, and I respect the author's seasoned opinion. Perhaps he will prove to be right.
In the meantime, the major inquiries persist: will the nation return to normalcy? Can it retrieve its standing in the world and its devotion to the rule of law?
Or do we need to admit that the national endeavor succeeded temporarily, and then – suddenly, utterly – failed?
My negative thoughts tells me that the second option is correct; that all may indeed be finished. My optimistic spirit, nevertheless, convinces me that we need to strive, through all methods we can.
In my case, working in journalism analysis, that means urging journalists to adhere, more fully, to their mission of overseeing leadership. For different individuals, it might involve participating in congressional campaigns, or organizing rallies, or developing approaches to safeguard electoral access.
Less than a year ago, we lived in an alternate reality. A year from now? Or three years from now? The truth is, we cannot predict. Our sole course is to strive to not give up.
What Offers Me Encouragement Today
The contact I encounter with students with aspiring reporters, that are simultaneously visionary and grounded, {always
