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In late October 2024, the landscape was completely separate. Before the national election, considerate Americans could acknowledge the country's serious imperfections – its unfairness and disparity – but they continued to identify it as the United States. A democratic nation. A country where legal governance held significance. A country guided by a honorable and ethical official, notwithstanding his advanced age and growing weakness.

Nowadays, this autumn, numerous citizens hardly identify the country we inhabit. Persons believed to be illegal immigrants are detained and pushed into transport, occasionally denied due process. The East Wing of the “people’s house” – is being destroyed for an obscene dance hall. The leader is persecuting his opponents or supposed enemies and demanding legal authorities surrender a massive sum of taxpayer money. Soldiers with weapons are dispatched across metropolitan centers on false pretexts. The military command, relabeled the Defense Ministry, has – in effect – liberated itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny as it spends possibly reaching almost one trillion dollars in public funds. Colleges, law firms, media outlets are submitting from leader's menaces, and billionaires are treated like nobility.

“America, shortly prior to its quarter-millennium anniversary as the world’s leading democracy, has tipped over the edge into autocracy and totalitarianism,” a noted author, commented this past summer. “In the end, more quickly than I thought feasible, it occurred in this country.”

One awakes with fresh terrors. It is challenging to understand – and agonizing to acknowledge – how severely declined we are, and the speed at which it unfolded.

Nevertheless, we know that Trump was duly elected. Even after his profoundly alarming first term and despite the cautions associated with the knowledge of the rightwing blueprint – following Trump himself said publicly he planned to rule as a tyrant only on the first day – enough Americans chose him over his Democratic opponent.

Frightening as today's circumstances is, it's more daunting to recognize that we are just several months into this administration. What will another 36 months of this decline leave us? And if that period transforms into a more extended duration, because there is nobody to restrain this president from opting that another term is necessary, possibly for defense purposes?

Certainly, there is still hope. There will be congressional elections in 2026 that could create a new balance of power, should Democrats recapture the Senate or House of the legislature. There exist public servants who are trying to exert a degree of oversight, such as lawmakers who are starting a probe concerning the try to fund seizure from the justice department.

And a leadership election three years from now could initiate us down the road toward restoration precisely as the previous vote set us on this disappointing trajectory.

There exist countless citizens marching in the streets of their cities, like they performed in the past days in the No Kings rallies.

Robert Reich, commented this week that “the dormant powerhouse of the nation is awakening”, similar to past after the Communist witch-hunt era during the fifties or amid anti-war demonstrations or during the Watergate scandal.

During those times, the listing ship eventually was righted.

Reich says he recognizes the indicators of that revival and notices it unfolding now. As support, he cites the widespread marches, the broad, multi-faction opposition against a personality's dismissal and the near-unanimous rejection by reporters to accept the defense department’s demands they solely cover authorized information.

“The sleeping giant consistently stays asleep until certain corruption turns extremely harmful, a particular deed so offensive of societal benefit, specific cruelty so noisy, that it has no choice except to rise.”

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

In the meantime, the major inquiries endure: will the nation ever recover? Can it retrieve its standing in the world and its commitment to the rule of law?

Or should we recognize that the historical project succeeded temporarily, and then – suddenly, utterly – failed?

My pessimistic brain suggests that the second option is accurate; that all may indeed be gone. My optimistic spirit, however, tells me that we need to strive, by any means available.

Personally, working in journalism analysis, that means urging journalists to adhere, more thoroughly, to their duty of overseeing leadership. For some people, it may be working on congressional campaigns, or organizing rallies, or finding ways to defend voting rights.

Not even one year prior, we existed in a very different place. In the future? Or three years from now? The fact is, we don’t know. All we can do is try to continue fighting.

What Provides Me Hope Now

The engagement I have with students with new media professionals, who are equally visionary and realistic, {always