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In late October 2024, the environment was completely different. Ahead of the US presidential election, considerate citizens could admit the nation's deep flaws – its inequities and inequality – yet they could still identify it as the United States. A democratic nation. A place where the rule of law held significance. A state led by a honorable and ethical official, even with his elderly years and growing weakness.

These days, this autumn, countless Americans barely recognize the country we live in. Persons alleged as unauthorized foreigners are detained and pushed into transport, occasionally refused legal rights. The eastern section of the “people’s house” – is being torn down to build a lavish event space. Donald Trump is persecuting his political rivals or alleged foes and demanding federal prosecutors surrender a huge total of citizen dollars. Soldiers with weapons are dispatched to US urban areas with deceptive justifications. The military command, rebranded the Defense Ministry, has – in effect – freed itself of regular press examination while it uses what could amount to close to a trillion USD of taxpayer money. Institutions, attorney offices, news companies are yielding due to presidential intimidation, and rich magnates are treated like aristocracy.

“The US, only a few months ahead of its 250^th birthday as the globe's top democratic nation, has fallen over the edge into authoritarianism and totalitarianism,” Garrett Graff, stated this past summer. “In the end, more quickly than I thought feasible, it transpired in America.”

One awakes with fresh terrors. It is hard to comprehend – and distressing to accept – how severely declined we are, and how quickly it has happened.

Nevertheless, we know that the president was duly elected. Following his deeply disturbing previous administration and despite the alerts that came with the awareness of the conservative plan – despite the leader directly stated openly he planned to rule as a tyrant solely at the start – sufficient voters elected him instead of Kamala Harris.

Frightening as the present situation is, it’s even scarier to realize that we’re only three-quarters of a year under this leadership. Where will another 36 months of this deterioration find us? And if that timeframe turns into a more extended duration, since there is not anyone to limit this president from determining that a third term is essential, perhaps for security concerns?

Certainly, not everything is hopeless. We will have midterm elections in 2026 that may bring a different governmental control, if Democrats regain either chamber of parliament. We have government representatives who are striving to apply certain responsibility, for example lawmakers that are starting a probe regarding the effort to cash appropriation by federal prosecutors.

And a leadership election in 2028 could initiate the path toward restoration exactly as the prior selection set us on this regrettable path.

There are millions of Americans protesting in urban areas across municipalities, like they performed in the past days in the No Kings rallies.

A former official, commented this week that “the great sleeping giant of the nation is stirring”, similar to past after the Communist witch-hunt era during the fifties or amid the Vietnam war protests or throughout the Nixon controversy.

In those instances, the tilting vessel finally returned to balance.

The author states he understands the indicators of that awakening and notices it unfolding at present. For proof, he points to the recent massive protests, the broad, cross-party resistance to a personality's dismissal and the near-unanimous rejection by reporters to accept military mandates they report only what is sanctioned.

“The sleeping giant perpetually exists asleep before specific greed becomes so noxious, an specific act so offensive toward public welfare, some brutality so loud, that the giant is forced but to awaken.”

It’s an optimistic take, and I respect Reich’s experienced view. Perhaps he will be validated.

At the same time, the major inquiries endure: will the nation ever recover? Can it retrieve its standing in the world and its devotion to legal principles?

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

My pessimistic brain suggests that the latter is true; that everything could be finished. My optimistic spirit, though, convinces me that we need to strive, through all methods available.

In my case, as an observer of the press, that’s about encouraging reporters to commit, more thoroughly, to their mission of scrutinizing authority. For some people, it may be working on political races, or planning demonstrations, or finding ways to defend electoral access.

Not even one year prior, we lived in a very different place. A year from now? Or three years from now? The truth is, we don’t know. All we can do is to attempt to continue fighting.

What Provides Me Hope Now

The interaction I experience in the classroom with young journalists, who are both idealistic and grounded, {always