The Heartbreaking Change a Single Year Has Made in America
In late October 2024, the situation was completely distinct. Before the US presidential election, reflective Americans could recognize the nation's deep flaws – its inequities and inequality – but they continued to see it as the US. A democratic nation. A place where the rule of law held significance. A nation guided by a respectable and upright leader, notwithstanding his older age and declining health.
Nowadays, as October 2025 ends, numerous citizens barely recognize the nation we live in. Individuals believed to be illegal immigrants are detained and pushed into vans, at times denied due process. The East Wing of the “people’s house” – is being torn down for an obscene event space. The president is harassing his adversaries or supposed enemies and requesting federal prosecutors hand over an enormous amount of taxpayer money. Armed military personnel are dispatched into American cities with deceptive justifications. The military command, relabeled the War Department, has effectively rid itself of regular press examination as it spends potentially totaling nearly $1tn of taxpayer money. Colleges, legal practices, news companies are submitting from leader's menaces, and billionaires are treated like members of the royal family.
“The US, just months before its 250-year mark as the planet's foremost free society, has fallen over the brink into authoritarianism and fascism,” an American historian, stated this past summer. “Finally, faster than I believed likely, it occurred here.”
One awakes with fresh terrors. It is challenging to understand – and painful to realize – just how far gone our nation is, and the rapid pace with which it unfolded.
Yet, it is known that the president was properly voted in. Following his deeply disturbing previous administration and following the warnings that came with the knowledge of the rightwing blueprint – following the president personally declared plainly he would be a dictator just on day one – enough Americans chose him instead of Kamala Harris.
While alarming as the current reality are, it's more frightening to recognize that we have only been three-quarters of a year into this presidential term. Where will three more years of this deterioration leave us? And if that period turns into a more extended duration, as there is nobody to limit this leader from opting that another term is necessary, maybe for security concerns?
Certainly, not everything is hopeless. There are congressional elections next year that may establish an alternate balance of power, should Democrats regain one or both houses of parliament. We have government representatives who are attempting to impose some accountability, for example Democratic congressmen that are starting a probe regarding the effort to cash appropriation from the justice department.
And a presidential election in the next cycle could begin our journey to recovery exactly as last year’s election set us on this disappointing trajectory.
We see countless citizens protesting in the streets of their cities, similar to recent recently during anti-authority protests.
A former official, wrote recently that “the great sleeping giant of the US is awakening”, exactly as before following the Red Scare in that decade or throughout the sixties activism or in the Nixon controversy.
On those occasions, the tilting vessel ultimately corrected itself.
Reich says he knows the signs of that awakening and sees it happening at present. As support, he references the large-scale demonstrations, the extensive, cross-party resistance regarding a television host's removal and the almost universal defiance by media to agree to the defense department’s demands they solely cover what is sanctioned.
“The sleeping giant perpetually exists asleep till specific greed becomes so noxious, a particular deed so contemptuous toward public welfare, specific cruelty so noisy, that it is forced other than to stir.”
It's a hopeful perspective, and I value the author's seasoned opinion. Perhaps he will be validated.
In the meantime, the crucial issues endure: is the US able to regain its footing? Can it reclaim its status in the world and its devotion to legal principles?
Or must we acknowledge that the 250-year-old experiment worked for a while, and then – swiftly, totally – ended?
My negative thoughts suggests that the latter is accurate; that everything might be gone. My optimistic spirit, nevertheless, convinces me that we must try, in whatever ways possible.
In my case, as an observer of the press, that’s about urging journalists to commit, more thoroughly, to their mission of holding power to account. For others, it could mean participating in political races, or planning demonstrations, or discovering methods to safeguard voting rights.
Under twelve months back, we existed in an alternate reality. In the future? Or after another term? The reality is, we don’t know. Our sole course is try to continue fighting.
What Provides Me Hope Now
The contact I experience with students with young journalists, who are both visionary and realistic, {always
