A Tragic Transformation Just One Year Has Brought in the United States
One year ago, the landscape was utterly different. Prior to the US presidential election, considerate Americans could recognize the country's significant faults – its injustices and disparity – but they could still identify it as the United States. A free society. A land where legal governance held significance. A country headed by a respectable and ethical official, even with his advanced age and declining health.
Nowadays, in late October 2025, numerous citizens scarcely know the land we live in. People believed to be unauthorized foreigners are rounded up and shoved into transport, at times denied due process. The East Wing of the presidential residence – is being torn down for a grotesque event space. Donald Trump is targeting his adversaries or perceived antagonists and requesting federal prosecutors transfer an enormous amount of citizen dollars. Soldiers with weapons are deployed across metropolitan centers under fabricated reasons. The defense headquarters, rebranded the Department of War, has practically freed itself of routine media oversight during its expenditure of potentially totaling nearly $1tn in public funds. Institutions, law firms, news companies are yielding under the president’s threats, and wealthy elites are regarded as members of the royal family.
“The United States, just months before its 250th birthday as the planet's foremost free society, has tipped over the limit into autocracy and fascism,” a noted author, stated in August. “Finally, faster than I imagined possible, it transpired here.”
Each day begins with fresh terrors. It is challenging to understand – and distressing to accept – how deeply lost we are, and how quickly it unfolded.
Yet, we know that the president was duly elected. Despite his highly troubling initial presidency and following the alerts that came with the knowledge of the conservative plan – following Trump himself stated openly he intended to act as an autocrat only on the first day – a majority of citizens selected him over his Democratic opponent.
As terrifying as the present situation are, it's more daunting to realize that we are just nine months into this presidential term. Where will three more years of this downfall position us? And suppose that timeframe turns into something even longer, as there is no one to restrain this president from deciding that another term is required, maybe for defense purposes?
Granted, not everything is hopeless. There are midterm elections the coming year that could create a new political equilibrium, should Democrats regain either chamber of the legislature. We have public servants who are trying to exert some accountability, like Democratic congressmen that are launching an investigation regarding the effort to money grab by federal prosecutors.
And a presidential election in the next cycle could begin our journey to healing exactly as last year’s election placed us on this disappointing trajectory.
There exist numerous residents protesting in urban areas throughout communities, like they performed last weekend in the No Kings rallies.
Robert Reich, stated lately that “the dormant powerhouse of America is stirring”, just as it did post-McCarthyism in that decade or during the sixties activism or in the Watergate scandal.
In those instances, the listing ship ultimately corrected itself.
Reich says he knows the signals of that resurgence and notices it unfolding currently. For proof, he points to the widespread marches, the widespread, bipartisan pushback regarding a personality's dismissal and the largely united rejection by reporters to sign the defense department’s demands they report only what is sanctioned.
“The slumbering entity consistently stays inactive until specific greed becomes so noxious, an specific act so contemptuous of the common good, some brutality so noisy, that the giant has no choice except to rise.”
It's a hopeful perspective, and I appreciate the author's seasoned opinion. Possibly he may be validated.
Meanwhile, the big questions persist: is the US able to ever recover? Is it possible to restore its status in the world and its devotion to legal principles?
Or should we recognize that the 250-year-old experiment worked for a while, and then – suddenly, utterly – failed?
My pessimistic brain indicates that the latter is true; that everything might be finished. My hopeful heart, nevertheless, convinces me that we need to strive, by any means we can.
Personally, working in journalism analysis, that involves pushing media professionals to commit, more fully, to their mission of overseeing leadership. For different individuals, it could mean participating in political races, or coordinating protests, or discovering methods to defend electoral access.
Less than a year ago, we lived in an alternate reality. Twelve months later? Or three years from now? The reality is, we don’t know. Our sole course is try to not give up.
What’s Giving Me Optimism Currently
The contact I have with students with aspiring reporters, who are equally idealistic and grounded, {always
