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Twelve months back, the environment was entirely different. Prior to the American presidential vote, considerate citizens could admit America's deep flaws – its unfairness and inequality – however they continued to identify it as the United States. A democratic nation. A land where legal governance held significance. A state guided by a respectable and decent official, even with his older age and growing weakness.

Nowadays, this autumn, numerous citizens scarcely know the country we live in. Persons alleged as illegal immigrants are collected and shoved into transport, sometimes blocked from fair treatment. The East Wing of the White House – is being destroyed for a grotesque dance hall. The leader is persecuting his adversaries or perceived antagonists and insisting the justice department surrender a huge total of taxpayer money. Uniformed troops are dispatched across metropolitan centers under fabricated reasons. The defense headquarters, renamed the War Department, has – in effect – liberated itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny while it uses potentially totaling nearly $1tn in public funds. Universities, legal practices, media outlets are submitting from leader's menaces, and wealthy elites are regarded as members of the royal family.

“The US, just months before its quarter-millennium anniversary as the globe's top democratic nation, has tipped over the brink toward dictatorship and fascism,” Garrett Graff, commented in August. “Finally, faster than I thought feasible, it transpired here.”

One awakes with fresh terrors. And it is difficult to grasp – and painful to realize – just how far gone we have become, and how quickly it unfolded.

However, we know that the president was legitimately chosen. Following his profoundly alarming previous administration and despite the warnings associated with the awareness of the rightwing blueprint – despite Trump himself said publicly he would act as an autocrat just on day one – a majority of citizens selected him over the other candidate.

While alarming as the current reality is, it's more daunting to understand that we’re only nine months into this presidential term. Where will another 36 months of this deterioration leave us? And what if the three years becomes an prolonged era, because there is nobody to restrain this ruler from determining that additional tenure is essential, maybe for security concerns?

Granted, all is not lost. There will be midterm elections in 2026 that may bring a different political equilibrium, in case Democrats retake one or both houses of the legislature. There are government representatives who are striving to impose some accountability, for example Democratic congressmen currently initiating an inquiry concerning the try to money grab by federal prosecutors.

And a leadership election in 2028 could initiate us down the road to healing precisely as the prior selection set us on this regrettable path.

There exist numerous residents marching in the streets of their cities, like they performed last weekend in the No Kings rallies.

Robert Reich, commented this week that “the dormant powerhouse of the US is rising”, just as it did post-McCarthyism in that decade or amid anti-war demonstrations or in the seventies crisis.

On those occasions, the listing ship finally returned to balance.

He claims he knows the signals of that revival and observes it occurring at present. For proof, he points to the recent massive protests, the extensive, multi-faction opposition against a broadcaster's firing and the largely united refusal by journalists to sign military mandates they report only authorized information.

“The dormant force consistently stays asleep before certain corruption becomes so noxious, some action so contemptuous toward public welfare, some brutality so disruptive, that it has no choice other than to stir.”

It's a hopeful perspective, and I value his knowledgeable stance. Possibly he may be validated.

Meanwhile, the big questions remain: can America ever recover? Is it possible to restore its position in the world 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 pessimistic brain suggests that the final scenario is correct; that all may indeed be finished. My hopeful heart, though, advises me that we have to attempt, by any means possible.

Personally, as a media critic, that involves urging journalists to live up, more thoroughly, to their purpose of overseeing leadership. For some people, it could mean participating in congressional campaigns, or coordinating protests, or finding ways to defend voting rights.

Under twelve months back, we were in an alternate reality. In the future? Or after another term? The fact is, we cannot predict. Our sole course is try to persevere.

What Provides Me Optimism Currently

The engagement I have during teaching with young journalists, who are both visionary and practical, {always