A Devastating Transformation Just One Year Has Caused in the United States

In late October 2024, the environment was utterly different. Before the American presidential vote, thoughtful citizens could recognize America's serious imperfections – its unfairness and imbalance – however they still could see it as the US. A democratic nation. A land where constitutional order meant something. A country guided by a honorable and upright official, despite his older age and growing weakness.

Nowadays, in late October 2025, countless Americans barely recognize the country we reside in. People believed to be unauthorized foreigners are collected and shoved into vans, sometimes blocked from fair treatment. The left side of the “people’s house” – is undergoing demolition to build a lavish event space. The leader is targeting his political rivals or supposed enemies and demanding federal prosecutors surrender a huge total of citizen dollars. Uniformed troops are dispatched across metropolitan centers on false pretexts. The Pentagon, relabeled the Defense Ministry, has – in effect – freed itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny as it spends potentially totaling almost one trillion dollars from citizen taxes. Institutions, legal practices, journalism organizations are yielding from leader's menaces, and wealthy elites are handled as aristocracy.

“The US, only a few months ahead of its 250-year mark as the world’s leading democracy, has fallen over the brink into autocracy and totalitarianism,” Garrett Graff, commented in August. “Finally, swifter than I thought feasible, it did happen in America.”

Every morning starts amid recent atrocities. It is hard to comprehend – and painful to realize – just how far gone we are, and how quickly it occurred.

However, we understand that the president was legitimately chosen. Following his deeply disturbing first term and following the warnings linked to the awareness of the rightwing blueprint – following Trump himself stated openly he would rule as a tyrant only on the first day – enough Americans selected him rather than the other candidate.

Frightening as the present situation are, it’s even scarier to realize that we’re only three-quarters of a year into this administration. What will another 36 months of this deterioration find us? And suppose that period turns into an prolonged era, because there is no one to stop this ruler from deciding that another term is necessary, maybe for national security reasons?

Certainly, not everything is hopeless. We will have legislative votes in 2026 that may bring a different governmental control, if Democrats retake either chamber of the legislature. We have government representatives who are trying to exert a degree of oversight, such as lawmakers who are launching an investigation concerning the try to money grab from legal authorities.

And a national vote in 2028 could start the path to recovery just as the prior selection put us on this regrettable path.

There exist countless citizens marching in urban areas throughout communities, similar to recent recently in the No Kings rallies.

An ex-cabinet member, commented this week that “the dormant powerhouse of America is rising”, just as it did after the Communist witch-hunt era during the fifties or throughout anti-war demonstrations or in the Nixon controversy.

On those occasions, the tilting vessel eventually was righted.

The author states he understands the signals of that resurgence and sees it happening currently. For proof, he points to the recent massive protests, the broad, multi-faction opposition against a broadcaster's firing and the largely united refusal by journalists to sign the defense department’s demands they only publish what is sanctioned.

“The dormant force always remains dormant before some venality grows too toxic, some action so contemptuous of societal benefit, some brutality so loud, that he is forced but to awaken.”

It's a hopeful perspective, and I value the author's seasoned opinion. Maybe he’ll turn out correct.

In the meantime, the crucial issues persist: is the US able to ever recover? Can it retrieve its status internationally and its commitment to the rule of law?

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

My pessimistic brain indicates that the final scenario is accurate; that all may indeed be gone. My hopeful heart, though, tells me that we must try, by any means possible.

In my case, as an observer of the press, that’s about urging journalists to commit, more completely, to their mission of scrutinizing authority. For different individuals, it could mean participating in election efforts, or coordinating protests, or finding ways to safeguard ballot privileges.

Not even one year prior, we were in a very different place. Twelve months later? Or three years from now? The truth is, we are uncertain. All we can do is to strive to not give up.

What Provides Me Encouragement Today

The contact I experience during teaching with new media professionals, who are both idealistic and grounded, {always