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One year ago, the situation was utterly different. Prior to the American presidential vote, thoughtful residents could recognize the country's serious imperfections – its inequities and imbalance – but they continued to see it as the United States. A democracy. A place where constitutional order held significance. A nation led by a respectable and ethical public servant, even with his advanced age and increasing frailty.

Currently, as October 2025 ends, numerous citizens scarcely know the country we reside in. People suspected of being undocumented migrants are detained and pushed into vans, occasionally refused legal rights. The left side of the presidential residence – is being destroyed for an obscene ballroom. The leader is persecuting his adversaries or perceived antagonists and insisting the justice department transfer an enormous amount of citizen dollars. Uniformed troops are deployed into American cities under fabricated reasons. The Pentagon, renamed the War Department, has practically freed itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny during its expenditure of potentially totaling almost one trillion dollars in public funds. Institutions, legal practices, news companies are yielding from leader's menaces, and billionaires are treated like nobility.

“The United States, shortly prior to its quarter-millennium anniversary as the planet's foremost free society, has fallen over the limit into autocracy and extremism,” an American historian, commented this past summer. “Ultimately, more quickly than I believed likely, it did happen here.”

Every morning starts with fresh terrors. It is challenging to understand – and distressing to accept – how severely declined we are, and the rapid pace with which it has happened.

Yet, it is known that the leader was properly voted in. Despite his highly troubling previous administration and despite the alerts linked to the understanding of the rightwing blueprint – despite Trump himself stated openly he intended to be a dictator only on the first day – a majority of citizens selected him instead of Kamala Harris.

Frightening as the current reality are, it's more frightening to recognize that we’re only three-quarters of a year under this leadership. What will an additional three years of this deterioration leave us? And if the three years turns into a more extended duration, as there is not anyone to limit this ruler from determining that additional tenure is necessary, perhaps for security concerns?

Certainly, not everything is hopeless. There will be midterm elections next year that could bring a different balance of power, in case Democrats regain either chamber of parliament. There are government representatives who are trying to apply certain responsibility, like lawmakers who are initiating an inquiry concerning the try to money grab from the justice department.

And a presidential election in 2028 could initiate our journey toward restoration precisely as the prior selection put us on this disappointing trajectory.

We see millions of Americans protesting in urban areas throughout communities, as they did recently in the No Kings rallies.

A former official, wrote recently that “the dormant powerhouse of the US is rising”, just as it did post-McCarthyism in the 1950s or amid anti-war demonstrations or in the Watergate scandal.

In those instances, the listing ship ultimately corrected itself.

The author states he recognizes the signs of that revival and observes it occurring now. As support, he references the recent massive protests, the widespread, cross-party resistance against a television host's removal and the largely united refusal by journalists to accept the defense department’s demands they only publish authorized information.

“The slumbering entity consistently stays asleep till specific greed becomes so noxious, a particular deed so contemptuous toward public welfare, some brutality so disruptive, that the giant has no choice but to awaken.”

It's a hopeful perspective, and I value his knowledgeable stance. Maybe he’ll prove to be right.

Meanwhile, the major inquiries remain: can America ever recover? Can it retrieve its status globally and its devotion to the rule of law?

Or do we need to admit that the historical project worked for a while, and then – abruptly, completely – collapsed?

My pessimistic brain indicates that the second option is true; that everything might be finished. My hopeful heart, nevertheless, tells me that we need to strive, by any means available.

Personally, as a media critic, that means pushing media professionals to live up, more thoroughly, to their mission of holding power to account. For some people, it may be participating in political races, or organizing rallies, or developing approaches to defend ballot privileges.

Less than a year ago, we lived in a separate situation. In the future? Or after another term? The truth is, we are uncertain. All we can do is to attempt to continue fighting.

What’s Giving Me Optimism Currently

The contact I experience with students with new media professionals, who are equally visionary and grounded, {always