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In late October 2024, the environment was utterly distinct. Ahead of the American presidential vote, reflective residents could recognize the nation's significant faults – its inequities and inequality – however they continued to see it as America. A democratic nation. A place where legal governance carried weight. A nation guided by a dignified and upright public servant, despite his elderly years and declining health.

These days, as October 2025 ends, numerous citizens hardly identify the nation we inhabit. People alleged as unauthorized foreigners are collected and pushed into vehicles, sometimes blocked from fair treatment. The East Wing of the “people’s house” – is being destroyed to build a lavish event space. The leader is targeting his adversaries or perceived antagonists and insisting legal authorities hand over a massive sum of public funds. Armed military personnel are dispatched into American cities with deceptive justifications. The Pentagon, renamed the Defense Ministry, has practically rid itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny as it spends potentially totaling close to a trillion USD from citizen taxes. Colleges, law firms, journalism organizations are yielding under the president’s threats, and billionaires are regarded as members of the royal family.

“The US, just months before its 250-year mark as the world’s leading democracy, has crossed the limit into authoritarianism and totalitarianism,” Garrett Graff, commented recently. “In the end, more quickly than I imagined possible, it occurred in this country.”

One awakes amid recent atrocities. It is hard to comprehend – and distressing to accept – just how far gone our nation is, and how quickly it unfolded.

Nevertheless, we know that Trump was duly elected. Despite his highly troubling first term and despite the warnings linked to the understanding of the rightwing blueprint – even after Trump himself stated openly he would rule as a tyrant solely at the start – enough Americans elected him instead of Kamala Harris.

While alarming as today's circumstances may be, it's more frightening to understand that we are just nine months into this administration. What will an additional three years of this downfall leave us? And if that period turns into something even longer, because there is nobody to stop this ruler from deciding that a third term is required, maybe for national security reasons?

Admittedly, not everything is hopeless. There are congressional elections in 2026 that could bring a different governmental control, should Democrats regain the Senate or House of the legislature. We have government representatives who are striving to impose some accountability, like Democratic congressmen that are launching an investigation concerning the try to money grab from the justice department.

And a leadership election three years from now could initiate our journey to healing precisely as the prior selection placed us on this regrettable path.

There exist countless citizens marching in public spaces throughout communities, similar to recent last weekend in the No Kings rallies.

A former official, stated lately that “the slumbering force of the nation is awakening”, similar to past after the Communist witch-hunt era in the 1950s or during the sixties activism or throughout the Nixon controversy.

During those times, the listing ship finally returned to balance.

The author states he knows the signs of that resurgence and observes it occurring currently. For proof, he references the large-scale demonstrations, the extensive, bipartisan pushback regarding a personality's dismissal and the largely united defiance by media to accept military mandates they only publish authorized information.

“The dormant force consistently stays inactive until some venality grows too toxic, a particular deed so contemptuous of the common good, some brutality so noisy, that the giant is forced except to rise.”

It's a positive outlook, and I respect Reich’s experienced view. Perhaps he will prove to be right.

Meanwhile, the big questions endure: can America return to normalcy? Is it possible to restore its position globally and its adherence to the rule of law?

Or must we acknowledge that the historical project worked for a while, and then – suddenly, utterly – failed?

My cynical mind suggests that the final scenario is accurate; that all may indeed be gone. My positive feelings, nevertheless, convinces me that we have to attempt, in whatever ways possible.

For me, as a media critic, that means urging journalists to live up, more thoroughly, to their mission of holding power to account. For some people, it could mean participating in election efforts, or coordinating protests, or discovering methods to protect electoral access.

Not even one year prior, we existed in a very different place. In the future? Or three years from now? The truth is, we don’t know. Our sole course is to attempt to not give up.

What’s Giving Me Optimism Currently

The contact I have during teaching with aspiring reporters, that are simultaneously idealistic and realistic, {always