The Devastating Change Only 12 Months Has Made in the US
One year ago, the environment was entirely distinct. Before the US presidential election, reflective citizens could recognize the nation's significant faults – its inequities and disparity – yet they could still perceive it as America. A democracy. A land where constitutional order carried weight. A state led by a honorable and decent official, even with his older age and increasing frailty.
Nowadays, this autumn, many of us hardly identify the land we reside in. People suspected of being undocumented migrants are rounded up and shoved into vans, occasionally blocked from fair treatment. The East Wing of the presidential residence – is being torn down for a grotesque ballroom. The president is harassing his adversaries or alleged foes and insisting legal authorities hand over a massive sum of citizen dollars. Soldiers with weapons are being sent across metropolitan centers under fabricated reasons. The defense headquarters, renamed the Defense Ministry, has – in effect – liberated itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny as it spends potentially totaling nearly $1tn of taxpayer money. Institutions, legal practices, media outlets are buckling due to presidential intimidation, and rich magnates are handled as aristocracy.
“America, only a few months ahead of its quarter-millennium anniversary as the planet's foremost free society, has crossed the brink toward dictatorship and totalitarianism,” an American historian, commented recently. “Finally, more quickly than I believed likely, it occurred here.”
Each day begins with fresh terrors. And it's hard to comprehend – and distressing to accept – how deeply lost we have become, and how quickly it occurred.
However, it is known that the president was duly elected. Despite his profoundly alarming previous administration and following the alerts that came with the understanding of the conservative plan – even after the president personally said publicly he would be a dictator solely at the start – a majority of citizens selected him instead of Kamala Harris.
Frightening as the present situation is, it's more frightening to realize that we are just nine months under this leadership. How will three more years of this decline position us? And if that period becomes an prolonged era, because there is not anyone to stop this ruler from determining that another term is essential, possibly for security concerns?
Granted, all is not lost. There will be midterm elections in 2026 that could bring a different political equilibrium, if Democrats recapture one or both houses of the legislature. There exist public servants who are trying to apply some accountability, such as lawmakers who are initiating an inquiry regarding the effort to fund seizure by federal prosecutors.
And a presidential election in 2028 could begin us down the road to healing exactly as the prior selection placed us on this unfortunate course.
We see countless citizens demonstrating in the streets of their cities, as they did recently at democracy demonstrations.
A former official, stated lately that “the great sleeping giant of America is rising”, just as it did after the Communist witch-hunt era in the 1950s or amid the Vietnam war protests or in the Nixon controversy.
On those occasions, the tilting vessel ultimately corrected itself.
Reich says he understands the indicators of that revival and notices it unfolding currently. For proof, he references the large-scale demonstrations, the broad, cross-party resistance regarding a television host's removal and the almost universal rejection by reporters to agree to the defense department’s demands they report only what is sanctioned.
“The slumbering entity perpetually exists dormant until certain corruption becomes so noxious, some action so offensive toward public welfare, specific cruelty so noisy, that it has no choice but to awaken.”
It's a hopeful perspective, and I value Reich’s experienced view. Maybe he’ll be validated.
At the same time, the major inquiries remain: is the US able to return to normalcy? Is it possible to restore its position globally and its devotion to the rule of law?
Or must we acknowledge that the national endeavor succeeded temporarily, and then – suddenly, utterly – failed?
My pessimistic brain suggests that the second option is accurate; that everything could be gone. My hopeful heart, nevertheless, advises me that we must try, in whatever ways available.
Personally, working in journalism analysis, that’s about pushing media professionals to live up, more completely, to their mission of holding power to account. For different individuals, it could mean participating in election efforts, or coordinating protests, or discovering methods to safeguard voting rights.
Under twelve months back, we were in an alternate reality. Twelve months later? Or three years from now? The truth is, we cannot predict. Our sole course is to attempt to continue fighting.
What Offers Me Encouragement Today
The interaction I experience during teaching with aspiring reporters, who are both hopeful and practical, {always
