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Twelve months back, the environment was entirely separate. Ahead of the US presidential election, reflective residents could admit the nation's serious imperfections – its injustices and inequality – but they could still identify it as the US. A free society. A land where legal governance carried weight. A nation headed by a dignified and ethical public servant, despite his elderly years and growing weakness.

Nowadays, this autumn, many of us hardly identify the nation we live in. Persons alleged as illegal immigrants are collected and pushed into transport, occasionally denied due process. The East Wing of the White House – is being torn down for an obscene ballroom. The president is targeting his political rivals or alleged foes and demanding the justice department surrender a massive sum of public funds. Armed military personnel are dispatched to US urban areas under fabricated reasons. The military command, renamed the War Department, has effectively liberated itself of routine media oversight during its expenditure of potentially totaling close to a trillion USD of taxpayer money. Institutions, law firms, media outlets are yielding under the president’s threats, and billionaires are treated like nobility.

“The US, just months before its quarter-millennium anniversary as the globe's top democratic nation, has tipped over the limit into autocracy and totalitarianism,” an American historian, commented recently. “In the end, swifter than I believed likely, it did happen here.”

One awakes to new horrors. And it's challenging to understand – and distressing to accept – how severely declined our nation is, and the speed at which it unfolded.

However, it is known that the leader was legitimately chosen. Following his highly troubling initial presidency and following the alerts associated with the awareness of Project 2025 – following the president personally declared plainly he would be a dictator solely at the start – enough Americans selected him rather than Kamala Harris.

Frightening as the current reality are, it's more frightening to understand that we are just several months under this leadership. What will an additional three years of this deterioration find us? And what if that timeframe turns into an prolonged era, because there is not anyone to stop this leader from determining that a third term is required, perhaps for national security reasons?

Admittedly, not everything is hopeless. There will be legislative votes the coming year that could create a new political equilibrium, if Democrats recapture either chamber of Congress. There exist public servants who are striving to exert certain responsibility, such as representatives that are initiating an inquiry concerning the try to cash appropriation from the justice department.

And a leadership election in 2028 could begin our journey to healing precisely as the prior selection placed us on this regrettable path.

There exist numerous residents marching in urban areas across municipalities, as they did in the past days during anti-authority protests.

Robert Reich, stated lately that “the slumbering force of America is stirring”, similar to past after the Communist witch-hunt era in that decade or throughout the Vietnam war protests or in the Watergate scandal.

On those occasions, the tilting vessel finally returned to balance.

He claims he knows the indicators of that revival and notices it unfolding now. For proof, he points to the recent massive protests, the extensive, bipartisan pushback against a television host's removal and the near-unanimous refusal by journalists to agree to the defense department’s demands they report only authorized information.

“The sleeping giant always remains asleep until certain corruption grows too toxic, an specific act so contemptuous of societal benefit, certain violence so noisy, that it has no choice other than to stir.”

It’s an optimistic take, and I appreciate the author's seasoned opinion. Maybe he’ll prove to be right.

At the same time, the crucial issues persist: can America return to normalcy? Can it retrieve its position internationally and its adherence to constitutional order?

Or should we recognize that the 250-year-old experiment worked for a while, and then – suddenly, utterly – failed?

My negative thoughts suggests that the final scenario is correct; that everything might be lost. My hopeful heart, however, advises me that we must try, through all methods we can.

Personally, as a media critic, that involves urging journalists to commit, more fully, to their purpose of scrutinizing authority. For some people, it might involve working on political races, or coordinating protests, or discovering methods to protect voting rights.

Less than a year ago, we were in a very different place. Twelve months later? Or in several years? The truth is, we are uncertain. The only option is try to persevere.

What Provides Me Encouragement Today

The interaction I have with students with new media professionals, who are equally idealistic and realistic, {always