A Tragic Transformation a Single Year Has Made in America
One year ago, the landscape was utterly separate. Ahead of the US presidential election, thoughtful citizens could recognize America's significant faults – its injustices and inequality – but they could still see it as the United States. A free society. A country where constitutional order meant something. A state guided by a dignified and upright public servant, despite his elderly years and increasing frailty.
Nowadays, as October 2025 ends, countless Americans scarcely know the land we inhabit. Individuals alleged as unauthorized foreigners are detained and pushed into transport, occasionally blocked from fair treatment. The left side of the “people’s house” – is undergoing demolition to build a lavish ballroom. Donald Trump is persecuting his opponents or supposed enemies and requesting the justice department transfer a massive sum of citizen dollars. Armed military personnel are dispatched across metropolitan centers on false pretexts. The defense headquarters, renamed the Defense Ministry, has – in effect – freed itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny as it spends potentially totaling almost one trillion dollars in public funds. Universities, legal practices, journalism organizations are submitting under the president’s threats, and wealthy elites are treated like aristocracy.
“The United States, only a few months ahead of its quarter-millennium anniversary as the planet's foremost free society, has tipped over the edge toward dictatorship and totalitarianism,” Garrett Graff, wrote recently. “Ultimately, swifter than I imagined possible, it transpired here.”
Each day begins with fresh terrors. And it's challenging to understand – and agonizing to acknowledge – just how far gone we have become, and the speed at which it has happened.
Yet, we understand that the president was duly elected. Even after his deeply disturbing initial presidency and following the alerts associated with the understanding of the rightwing blueprint – despite Trump himself declared plainly he would be a dictator solely at the start – a majority of citizens elected him instead of Kamala Harris.
Frightening as the present situation may be, it's more frightening to recognize that we’re only three-quarters of a year into this presidential term. What will an additional three years of this downfall position us? And suppose that timeframe becomes something even longer, because there is nobody to restrain this president from determining that additional tenure is necessary, possibly for national security reasons?
Admittedly, all is not lost. We will have legislative votes next year which might establish an alternate political equilibrium, in case Democrats regain either chamber of the legislature. We have public servants who are striving to apply a degree of oversight, for example Democratic congressmen that are launching an investigation regarding the effort to money grab from the justice department.
And a leadership election in 2028 could start our journey toward restoration precisely as the previous vote placed us on this disappointing trajectory.
We see countless citizens protesting in urban areas of their cities, like they performed last weekend during anti-authority protests.
A former official, commented this week that “the slumbering force of the US is awakening”, exactly as before following the Red Scare during the fifties or throughout the sixties activism or in the Watergate scandal.
In those instances, the tilting vessel ultimately corrected itself.
He claims he recognizes the signals of that revival and notices it unfolding now. As support, he references the widespread marches, the widespread, multi-faction opposition regarding a television host's removal and the almost universal defiance by media to agree to military mandates they only publish authorized information.
“The slumbering entity consistently stays asleep before certain corruption turns extremely harmful, a particular deed so contemptuous of societal benefit, certain violence so noisy, that it has no choice but to awaken.”
It's a hopeful perspective, and I respect Reich’s experienced view. Maybe he’ll turn out correct.
At the same time, the big questions endure: will the nation regain its footing? Can it retrieve its status globally and its devotion to legal principles?
Or do we need to admit that the historical project worked for a while, and then – abruptly, completely – collapsed?
My cynical mind tells me that the second option is true; that everything could be lost. My optimistic spirit, however, advises me that we have to attempt, by any means we can.
Personally, as a media critic, that involves encouraging reporters to adhere, more fully, to their mission of overseeing leadership. For some people, it could mean engaging with election efforts, or planning demonstrations, or developing approaches to safeguard electoral access.
Less than a year ago, we were in an alternate reality. In the future? Or in several years? The truth is, we don’t know. Our sole course is to attempt to continue fighting.
What’s Giving Me Hope Now
The contact I have in the classroom with new media professionals, who are both hopeful and practical, {always