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In late October 2024, the environment was completely distinct. Ahead of the US presidential election, reflective citizens could admit the country's serious imperfections – its unfairness and imbalance – yet they continued to perceive it as the United States. A democracy. A country where the rule of law meant something. A country guided by a respectable and upright public servant, notwithstanding his advanced age and increasing frailty.

Currently, in late October 2025, countless Americans barely recognize the country we reside in. Individuals believed to be undocumented migrants are detained and forced into transport, sometimes refused legal rights. The left side of the presidential residence – is undergoing demolition for a grotesque event space. The president is harassing his political rivals or alleged foes and demanding the justice department hand over an enormous amount of citizen dollars. Soldiers with weapons are being sent across metropolitan centers with deceptive justifications. The military command, renamed the War Department, has practically rid itself of routine media oversight during its expenditure of what could amount to nearly $1tn from citizen taxes. Universities, legal practices, news companies are yielding from leader's menaces, and billionaires are treated like nobility.

“The US, just months before its 250-year mark as the planet's foremost free society, has crossed the brink toward dictatorship and totalitarianism,” a noted author, stated recently. “In the end, more quickly than I believed likely, it did happen in this country.”

Each day begins amid recent atrocities. And it's challenging to understand – and distressing to accept – just how far gone we have become, and the rapid pace with which it has happened.

However, it is known that Trump was duly elected. Following his deeply disturbing previous administration and despite the alerts that came with the understanding of the rightwing blueprint – following Trump himself declared plainly he intended to be a dictator just on day one – sufficient voters elected him instead of Kamala Harris.

Frightening as today's circumstances is, it’s even scarier to recognize that we are just several months under this leadership. Where will an additional three years of this decline find us? And if that timeframe transforms into a more extended duration, because there is no one to restrain this president from deciding that a third term is necessary, maybe for national security reasons?

Admittedly, there is still hope. There will be legislative votes in 2026 that may establish an alternate balance of power, should Democrats recapture the Senate or House of Congress. We have elected officials who are attempting to impose certain responsibility, like lawmakers that are launching an investigation regarding the effort to fund seizure from the justice department.

And a presidential election three years from now could initiate our journey to healing just as the previous vote set us on this disappointing trajectory.

There exist countless citizens demonstrating in urban areas of their cities, like they performed in the past days at democracy demonstrations.

A former official, wrote recently that “the slumbering force of America is awakening”, exactly as before following the Red Scare in the 1950s or throughout the Vietnam war protests or during the seventies crisis.

In those instances, the tilting vessel ultimately corrected itself.

He claims he recognizes the signals of that revival and sees it happening at present. As evidence, he cites the large-scale demonstrations, the widespread, bipartisan pushback to a broadcaster's firing and the almost universal refusal by journalists to agree to the defense department’s demands they report only approved content.

“The sleeping giant perpetually exists dormant until specific greed becomes so noxious, an specific act so disrespectful of societal benefit, some brutality so disruptive, that it is forced other than to stir.”

It's a hopeful perspective, and I appreciate the author's seasoned opinion. Perhaps he will be validated.

At the same time, the crucial issues persist: will the nation ever recover? Can it retrieve its status in the world and its adherence to the rule of law?

Or should we recognize that the historical project functioned for a period, and then – swiftly, totally – ended?

My pessimistic brain suggests that the latter is true; that all may indeed be lost. My positive feelings, however, advises me that we need to strive, in whatever ways we can.

For me, as a media critic, that’s about urging journalists to live up, more fully, to their mission of overseeing leadership. For others, it might involve engaging with congressional campaigns, or coordinating protests, or finding ways to defend ballot privileges.

Not even one year prior, we were in a separate situation. A year from now? Or in several years? The truth is, we cannot predict. Our sole course is try to continue fighting.

What’s Giving Me Hope Now

The contact I encounter with students with young journalists, who are equally idealistic and grounded, {always