🔗 Share this article

Twelve months back, the landscape was utterly separate. Prior to the American presidential vote, thoughtful residents could admit the nation's significant faults – its injustices and inequality – but they still could perceive it as America. A free society. A place where the rule of law held significance. A nation guided by a dignified and upright public servant, despite his advanced age and increasing frailty.

These days, this autumn, numerous citizens hardly identify the land we inhabit. Persons believed to be illegal immigrants are rounded up and forced into vans, sometimes denied due process. The left side of the White House – is being destroyed for a grotesque event space. Donald Trump is persecuting his opponents or supposed enemies and requesting federal prosecutors transfer an enormous amount of citizen dollars. Armed military personnel are dispatched into American cities on false pretexts. The military command, renamed the War Department, has effectively freed itself of regular press examination during its expenditure of potentially totaling almost one trillion dollars from citizen taxes. Colleges, attorney offices, media outlets are yielding from leader's menaces, and wealthy elites are regarded as aristocracy.

“The US, only a few months ahead of its 250-year mark as the planet's foremost free society, has fallen over the edge into authoritarianism and extremism,” Garrett Graff, stated this past summer. “Ultimately, faster than I imagined possible, it transpired here.”

Every morning starts to new horrors. And it is challenging to understand – and painful to realize – how deeply lost our nation is, and the speed at which it unfolded.

However, we know that the president was properly voted in. Following his highly troubling initial presidency and following the warnings associated with the understanding of Project 2025 – even after Trump himself said publicly he intended to be a dictator just on day one – enough Americans elected him over Kamala Harris.

While alarming as the present situation may be, it’s even scarier to recognize that we’re only nine months under this leadership. Where will three more years of this downfall leave us? And suppose the three years transforms into a more extended duration, as there is not anyone to limit this ruler from deciding that additional tenure is necessary, maybe for defense purposes?

Admittedly, not everything is hopeless. We will have congressional elections next year that could establish an alternate political equilibrium, should Democrats retake one or both houses of Congress. There are public servants who are striving to impose a degree of oversight, like representatives that are starting a probe into the attempted cash appropriation from legal authorities.

And a national vote three years from now could initiate the path toward restoration just as the prior selection placed us on this disappointing trajectory.

There exist millions of Americans protesting in urban areas across municipalities, as they did last weekend in the No Kings rallies.

An ex-cabinet member, wrote recently that “the dormant powerhouse of the nation is stirring”, similar to past following the Red Scare in that decade or amid anti-war demonstrations or in the Watergate scandal.

On those occasions, the listing ship finally returned to balance.

He claims he understands the signs of that awakening and sees it happening currently. For proof, he points to the widespread marches, the broad, cross-party resistance against a personality's dismissal and the largely united rejection by reporters to accept the defense department’s demands they solely cover approved content.

“The dormant force always remains dormant till specific greed grows too toxic, a particular deed so disrespectful of the common good, some brutality so disruptive, that he is compelled but to awaken.”

It's a positive outlook, and I respect Reich’s experienced view. Maybe he’ll be validated.

At the same time, the big questions remain: can America return to normalcy? Is it possible to restore its status in the world and its devotion to the rule of law?

Or do we need to admit that the historical project succeeded temporarily, and then – abruptly, completely – collapsed?

My pessimistic brain tells me that the final scenario is correct; that everything might be gone. My hopeful heart, however, convinces me that we must try, by any means we can.

In my case, working in journalism analysis, that means urging journalists to adhere, more thoroughly, to their duty of scrutinizing authority. For different individuals, it might involve working on election efforts, or planning demonstrations, or developing approaches to safeguard voting rights.

Not even one year prior, we lived in a very different place. Twelve months later? Or in several years? The fact is, we are uncertain. All we can do is to attempt to continue fighting.

What Offers Me Hope Now

The engagement I have in the classroom with aspiring reporters, that are simultaneously visionary and grounded, {always