The Heartbreaking Change a Single Year Has Brought in America

In late October 2024, the situation was utterly separate. Ahead of the US presidential election, considerate residents could recognize the nation's significant faults – its unfairness and disparity – yet they still could perceive it as the United States. A democratic nation. A place where legal governance held significance. A nation headed by a respectable and upright leader, notwithstanding his advanced age and declining health.

These days, this autumn, numerous citizens hardly identify the land we inhabit. Individuals suspected of being undocumented migrants are rounded up and forced into transport, at times blocked from fair treatment. The left side of the “people’s house” – is being torn down for a grotesque event space. The president is harassing his adversaries or perceived antagonists and requesting federal prosecutors transfer a massive sum of taxpayer money. Uniformed troops are deployed to US urban areas with deceptive justifications. The Pentagon, renamed the Department of War, has practically rid itself of routine media oversight as it spends potentially totaling nearly $1tn in public funds. Colleges, legal practices, news companies are yielding under the president’s threats, and rich magnates are treated like nobility.

“The United States, only a few months ahead of its 250^th birthday as the planet's foremost free society, has tipped over the brink into authoritarianism and extremism,” an American historian, commented this past summer. “Finally, more quickly than I believed likely, it transpired in America.”

Every morning starts amid recent atrocities. And it's hard to comprehend – and painful to realize – how severely declined our nation is, and the speed at which it has happened.

Yet, we understand that Trump was legitimately chosen. Even after his profoundly alarming initial presidency and following the alerts that came with the awareness of the rightwing blueprint – following the leader directly said publicly he would be a dictator just on day one – a majority of citizens chose him over the other candidate.

Frightening as today's circumstances may be, it's more daunting to understand that we are just nine months into this presidential term. What will three more years of this deterioration find us? And if that period turns into a more extended duration, as there is nobody to stop this leader from determining that another term is required, perhaps for security concerns?

Certainly, all is not lost. There are congressional elections next year that could bring a different balance of power, should Democrats retake the Senate or House of the legislature. There are elected officials who are trying to apply some accountability, for example lawmakers currently launching an investigation into the attempted fund seizure by federal prosecutors.

And a leadership election in 2028 could start us down the road to recovery just as the previous vote set us on this unfortunate course.

We see numerous residents demonstrating in public spaces throughout communities, as they did in the past days at democracy demonstrations.

Robert Reich, commented this week that “the slumbering force of the US is awakening”, exactly as before after the Communist witch-hunt era in the 1950s or amid the sixties activism or throughout the Watergate scandal.

On those occasions, the unstable nation eventually was righted.

The author states he understands the signals of that resurgence and notices it unfolding at present. As evidence, he references the recent massive protests, the extensive, cross-party resistance against a broadcaster's firing and the largely united refusal by journalists to agree to the defense department’s demands they solely cover approved content.

“The dormant force consistently stays asleep before specific greed grows too toxic, some action so contemptuous toward public welfare, some brutality so disruptive, that he is compelled other than to stir.”

It's a positive outlook, and I respect the author's seasoned opinion. Perhaps he will prove to be right.

Meanwhile, the crucial issues endure: can America regain its footing? Can it reclaim its standing globally and its adherence to constitutional order?

Or do we need to admit that the 250-year-old experiment worked for a while, and then – abruptly, completely – collapsed?

My cynical mind suggests that the second option is correct; that everything might be gone. My positive feelings, nevertheless, convinces me that we need to strive, by any means we can.

For me, as a media critic, that means encouraging reporters to live up, more fully, to their purpose of holding power to account. For some people, it could mean working on election efforts, or planning demonstrations, or developing approaches to safeguard ballot privileges.

Not even one year prior, we lived in a separate situation. Twelve months later? Or in several years? The truth is, we are uncertain. The only option is to strive to continue fighting.

What Provides Me Encouragement Today

The engagement I experience in the classroom with young journalists, who are both idealistic and practical, {always