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Twelve months back, the environment was utterly different. Prior to the US presidential election, reflective citizens could recognize the nation's serious imperfections – its unfairness and disparity – but they still could perceive it as the US. A democratic nation. A place where the rule of law meant something. A nation led by a dignified and ethical official, notwithstanding his advanced age and declining health.

Nowadays, this autumn, countless Americans hardly identify the nation we live in. People believed to be unauthorized foreigners are detained and forced into vehicles, occasionally denied due process. The East Wing of the “people’s house” – is being torn down for an obscene dance hall. The president is targeting his adversaries or perceived antagonists and insisting federal prosecutors surrender a huge total of public funds. Soldiers with weapons are dispatched to US urban areas on false pretexts. The military command, renamed the Department of War, has effectively rid itself of routine media oversight while it uses potentially totaling almost one trillion dollars in public funds. Universities, legal practices, journalism organizations are yielding from leader's menaces, and rich magnates are regarded as aristocracy.

“The US, shortly prior to its 250-year mark as the globe's top democratic nation, has tipped over the brink into authoritarianism and extremism,” Garrett Graff, stated this past summer. “Finally, faster than I thought feasible, it transpired here.”

Every morning starts with fresh terrors. And it's hard to comprehend – and painful to realize – how deeply lost we are, and how quickly it unfolded.

Yet, it is known that the president was duly elected. Even after his profoundly alarming previous administration and despite the cautions linked to the knowledge of the rightwing blueprint – even after the leader directly said publicly he intended to rule as a tyrant just on day one – sufficient voters chose him rather than Kamala Harris.

As terrifying as today's circumstances may be, it’s even scarier to understand that we are just several months under this leadership. Where will three more years of this deterioration leave us? And what if the three years transforms into a more extended duration, since there is nobody to limit this president from opting that a third term is required, possibly for national security reasons?

Admittedly, not everything is hopeless. We will have congressional elections next year which might establish an alternate balance of power, if Democrats regain one or both houses of the legislature. There are public servants who are striving to impose a degree of oversight, such as representatives currently launching an investigation into the attempted money grab from legal authorities.

And a leadership election three years from now could begin the path toward restoration precisely as last year’s election placed us on this unfortunate course.

There are numerous residents marching in the streets across municipalities, like they performed recently during anti-authority protests.

An ex-cabinet member, stated lately that “the slumbering force of the US is stirring”, exactly as before post-McCarthyism in the 1950s or throughout the Vietnam war protests or throughout the seventies crisis.

In those instances, the tilting vessel eventually was righted.

The author states he knows the signs of that awakening and notices it unfolding now. For proof, he cites the recent massive protests, the widespread, multi-faction opposition against a personality's dismissal and the largely united refusal by journalists to sign military mandates they solely cover authorized information.

“The dormant force consistently stays asleep until some venality turns extremely harmful, an specific act so disrespectful of societal benefit, some brutality so disruptive, that it has no choice other than to stir.”

It's a hopeful perspective, and I appreciate his knowledgeable stance. Possibly he may turn out correct.

In the meantime, the major inquiries endure: is the US able to regain its footing? Can it reclaim its position globally and its devotion to legal principles?

Or should we recognize that the national endeavor functioned for a period, and then – suddenly, utterly – failed?

My cynical mind indicates that the second option is true; that everything could be finished. My positive feelings, nevertheless, advises me that we must try, in whatever ways available.

In my case, as an observer of the press, that means pushing media professionals to commit, more fully, to their purpose of holding power to account. For different individuals, it could mean working on election efforts, or coordinating protests, or developing approaches to defend electoral access.

Not even one year prior, we lived in a very different place. Twelve months later? Or in several years? The truth is, we don’t know. Our sole course is try to not give up.

What’s Giving Me Optimism Currently

The contact I have in the classroom with aspiring reporters, who are both hopeful and practical, {always