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One year ago, the landscape was entirely different. Prior to the US presidential election, thoughtful citizens could recognize America's serious imperfections – its unfairness and disparity – yet they could still identify it as the US. A free society. A land where legal governance meant something. A nation headed by a respectable and ethical public servant, despite his elderly years and increasing frailty.

These days, in late October 2025, numerous citizens hardly identify the country we live in. Persons alleged as unauthorized foreigners are rounded up and shoved into vans, sometimes refused legal rights. The left side of the “people’s house” – is being torn down to build a lavish dance hall. Donald Trump is targeting his adversaries or perceived antagonists and demanding legal authorities transfer an enormous amount of public funds. Uniformed troops are being sent across metropolitan centers with deceptive justifications. The military command, renamed the Defense Ministry, has effectively rid itself of regular press examination while it uses possibly reaching nearly $1tn in public funds. Colleges, legal practices, journalism organizations are buckling under the president’s threats, and wealthy elites are treated like nobility.

“The US, just months before its 250-year mark as the world’s leading democracy, has fallen over the brink toward dictatorship and extremism,” a noted author, commented this past summer. “In the end, more quickly than I imagined possible, it transpired here.”

One awakes to new horrors. And it is difficult to grasp – and distressing to accept – just how far gone our nation is, and how quickly it has happened.

Yet, we know that the leader was duly elected. Despite his deeply disturbing previous administration and even after the cautions linked to the understanding of the rightwing blueprint – despite the leader directly declared plainly he planned to rule as a tyrant just on day one – a majority of citizens chose him rather than Kamala Harris.

As terrifying as the current reality are, it's more daunting to understand that we are just several months into this administration. What will three more years of this deterioration leave us? And what if that period transforms into a more extended duration, as there is not anyone to stop this leader from determining that additional tenure is necessary, possibly for security concerns?

Granted, not everything is hopeless. There will be congressional elections the coming year that may bring a different governmental control, should Democrats recapture the Senate or House of the legislature. There are public servants who are trying to exert certain responsibility, such as lawmakers who are launching an investigation regarding the effort to fund seizure from the justice department.

And a presidential election in the next cycle could begin the path to healing just as last year’s election set us on this disappointing trajectory.

There are numerous residents protesting in public spaces of their cities, as they did in the past days at democracy demonstrations.

Robert Reich, commented this week that “the slumbering force of the nation is rising”, exactly as before post-McCarthyism in the 1950s or amid the Vietnam war protests or throughout the Watergate scandal.

In those instances, the listing ship ultimately corrected itself.

The author states he understands the indicators of that awakening and notices it unfolding now. As evidence, he cites the large-scale demonstrations, the widespread, multi-faction opposition regarding a personality's dismissal and the near-unanimous defiance by media to accept military mandates they solely cover authorized information.

“The sleeping giant always remains asleep until some venality grows too toxic, an specific act so disrespectful of the common good, specific cruelty so loud, that it is compelled except to rise.”

It's a positive outlook, and I respect his knowledgeable stance. Maybe he’ll be validated.

At the same time, the major inquiries persist: is the US able to ever recover? Can it reclaim its status in the world and its devotion to constitutional order?

Or must we acknowledge that the national endeavor worked for a while, and then – swiftly, totally – ended?

My pessimistic brain suggests that the final scenario is true; that everything could be gone. My hopeful heart, nevertheless, convinces me that we must try, through all methods possible.

Personally, as a media critic, that involves pushing media professionals to adhere, more fully, to their duty of overseeing leadership. For different individuals, it could mean engaging with election efforts, or planning demonstrations, or finding ways to safeguard voting rights.

Under twelve months back, we lived in a separate situation. A year from now? Or in several years? The reality is, we cannot predict. The only option is to attempt to continue fighting.

What’s Giving Me Optimism Currently

The engagement I encounter during teaching with new media professionals, that are simultaneously idealistic and practical, {always