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Twelve months back, the situation was utterly separate. Prior to the US presidential election, reflective Americans could admit the country's deep flaws – its unfairness and inequality – but they still could see it as the US. A free society. A place where constitutional order held significance. A country headed by a dignified and decent leader, notwithstanding his elderly years and growing weakness.

Currently, as October 2025 ends, numerous citizens scarcely know the country we live in. Individuals suspected of being undocumented migrants are detained and shoved into transport, occasionally refused legal rights. The left side of the “people’s house” – is undergoing demolition for an obscene ballroom. The president is harassing his political rivals or alleged foes and demanding the justice department transfer an enormous amount of public funds. Uniformed troops are being sent into American cities under fabricated reasons. The Pentagon, rebranded the Department of War, has effectively freed itself of routine media oversight as it spends possibly reaching nearly $1tn in public funds. Universities, law firms, media outlets are yielding under the president’s threats, and wealthy elites are handled as aristocracy.

“The US, only a few months ahead of its quarter-millennium anniversary as the world’s leading democracy, has tipped over the limit toward dictatorship and fascism,” an American historian, commented this past summer. “Ultimately, more quickly than I thought feasible, it did happen in this country.”

Every morning starts with fresh terrors. And it's difficult to grasp – and painful to realize – how severely declined our nation is, and how quickly it unfolded.

However, it is known that Trump was duly elected. Even after his deeply disturbing previous administration and following the warnings associated with the knowledge of the conservative plan – even after the leader directly stated openly he intended to be a dictator just on day one – a majority of citizens selected him instead of Kamala Harris.

Frightening as the current reality is, it’s even scarier to realize that we’re only nine months under this leadership. Where will another 36 months of this deterioration position us? And suppose that period transforms into an prolonged era, because there is not anyone to restrain this president from opting that a third term is required, maybe for defense purposes?

Certainly, there is still hope. There are midterm elections the coming year that could create a new balance of power, in case Democrats recapture one or both houses of parliament. We have government representatives who are trying to apply certain responsibility, like representatives who are launching an investigation concerning the try to money grab from the justice department.

And a leadership election in the next cycle could initiate our journey to healing just as the prior selection placed us on this disappointing trajectory.

We see numerous residents marching in the streets of their cities, as they did last weekend during anti-authority protests.

A former official, wrote recently that “the dormant powerhouse of America is rising”, similar to past following the Red Scare during the fifties or amid the sixties activism or during the seventies crisis.

On those occasions, the tilting vessel ultimately corrected itself.

He claims he knows the signs of that resurgence and sees it happening now. As evidence, he points to the large-scale demonstrations, the widespread, cross-party resistance against a television host's removal and the near-unanimous defiance by media to accept government requirements they report only authorized information.

“The slumbering entity always remains asleep before specific greed turns extremely harmful, an specific act so offensive toward public welfare, some brutality so disruptive, that the giant has no choice but to awaken.”

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

In the meantime, the big questions endure: is the US able to ever recover? Can it retrieve its status globally and its devotion to constitutional order?

Or do we need to admit that the 250-year-old experiment functioned for a period, and then – swiftly, totally – ended?

My negative thoughts suggests that the latter is correct; that everything could be lost. My optimistic spirit, nevertheless, tells me that we need to strive, in whatever ways available.

Personally, as an observer of the press, that involves encouraging reporters to adhere, more completely, to their mission of holding power to account. For others, it may be participating in political races, or organizing rallies, or discovering methods to protect voting rights.

Not even one year prior, we were in a very different place. In the future? Or in several years? The reality is, we don’t know. The only option is to attempt to not give up.

What’s Giving Me Optimism Currently

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