A Devastating Transformation a Single Year Has Brought in the United States

In late October 2024, the landscape was entirely distinct. Prior to the American presidential vote, reflective residents could admit America's significant faults – its inequities and disparity – but they still could perceive it as the United States. A democracy. A land where legal governance meant something. A country headed by a respectable and upright public servant, despite his elderly years and increasing frailty.

These days, as October 2025 ends, many of us hardly identify the land we inhabit. Persons believed to be illegal immigrants are rounded up and shoved into vans, sometimes denied due process. The left side of the presidential residence – is being torn down for a grotesque dance hall. The president is harassing his adversaries or alleged foes and insisting federal prosecutors hand over a massive sum of taxpayer money. Soldiers with weapons are deployed across metropolitan centers with deceptive justifications. The military command, relabeled the Defense Ministry, has practically freed itself of routine media oversight during its expenditure of potentially totaling close to a trillion USD from citizen taxes. Institutions, legal practices, journalism organizations are buckling under the president’s threats, and wealthy elites are treated like nobility.

“The US, only a few months ahead of its 250^th birthday as the globe's top democratic nation, has tipped over the edge into authoritarianism and fascism,” Garrett Graff, stated this past summer. “Finally, faster than I imagined possible, it did happen in this country.”

Each day begins with fresh terrors. It is hard to comprehend – and distressing to accept – just how far gone we have become, and the rapid pace with which it unfolded.

Yet, we understand that Trump was properly voted in. Even after his profoundly alarming previous administration and following the cautions that came with the understanding of Project 2025 – following the president personally said publicly he intended to rule as a tyrant just on day one – a majority of citizens selected him instead of Kamala Harris.

While alarming as today's circumstances are, it’s even scarier to understand that we’re only three-quarters of a year into this administration. Where will three more years of this decline leave us? And suppose that timeframe turns into something even longer, since there is no one to restrain this president from determining that a third term is necessary, perhaps for national security reasons?

Certainly, all is not lost. There will be midterm elections in 2026 that could bring a different governmental control, should Democrats retake one or both houses of parliament. We have public servants who are striving to impose some accountability, such as representatives who are starting a probe into the attempted fund seizure by federal prosecutors.

And a national vote three years from now could start us down the road to healing just as the prior selection placed us on this disappointing trajectory.

We see countless citizens marching in urban areas across municipalities, like they performed recently during anti-authority protests.

Robert Reich, wrote recently that “the great sleeping giant of the US is rising”, just as it did post-McCarthyism during the fifties or throughout anti-war demonstrations or in the seventies crisis.

During those times, the unstable nation eventually was righted.

He claims he recognizes the signals of that revival and sees it happening now. For proof, he cites the large-scale demonstrations, the widespread, multi-faction opposition against a television host's removal and the almost universal rejection by reporters to accept government requirements they report only authorized information.

“The slumbering entity perpetually exists dormant until some venality becomes so noxious, an specific act so disrespectful toward public welfare, certain violence so loud, that it is forced but to awaken.”

It’s an optimistic take, and I appreciate his knowledgeable stance. Possibly he may turn out correct.

Meanwhile, the crucial issues remain: is the US able to ever recover? Can it reclaim its position globally and its adherence to legal principles?

Or must we acknowledge that the 250-year-old experiment succeeded temporarily, and then – suddenly, utterly – failed?

My negative thoughts tells me that the second option is correct; that all may indeed be lost. My optimistic spirit, though, convinces me that we need to strive, through all methods we can.

In my case, working in journalism analysis, that involves pushing media professionals to adhere, more thoroughly, to their mission of scrutinizing authority. For some people, it may be working on election efforts, or organizing rallies, or discovering methods to safeguard voting rights.

Not even one year prior, we existed in a very different place. In the future? Or three years from now? The reality is, we don’t know. The only option is try to persevere.

What Offers Me Hope Now

The contact I have in the classroom with aspiring reporters, who are both visionary and realistic, {always