🔗 Share this article

One year ago, the landscape was entirely different. Ahead of the US presidential election, considerate citizens could recognize the country's serious imperfections – its unfairness and imbalance – yet they still could identify it as the United States. A democratic nation. A land where constitutional order meant something. A country headed by a respectable and decent official, even with his older age and growing weakness.

Nowadays, this autumn, countless Americans scarcely know the nation we reside in. Persons suspected of being undocumented migrants are collected and shoved into vehicles, occasionally blocked from fair treatment. The eastern section of the White House – is undergoing demolition to build a lavish dance hall. The president is targeting his opponents or supposed enemies and demanding federal prosecutors surrender an enormous amount of citizen dollars. Armed military personnel are being sent into American cities under fabricated reasons. The Pentagon, renamed the War Department, has practically freed itself of regular press examination during its expenditure of potentially totaling close to a trillion USD from citizen taxes. Colleges, law firms, media outlets are submitting from leader's menaces, and billionaires are regarded as nobility.

“The US, only a few months ahead of its quarter-millennium anniversary as the globe's top democratic nation, has crossed the brink toward dictatorship and totalitarianism,” an American historian, wrote this past summer. “In the end, more quickly than I believed likely, it did happen here.”

Every morning starts to new horrors. And it's hard to comprehend – and painful to realize – how deeply lost our nation is, and the speed at which it unfolded.

However, it is known that the leader was properly voted in. Even after his deeply disturbing previous administration and despite the alerts associated with the understanding of the rightwing blueprint – following the leader directly said publicly he would be a dictator only on the first day – a majority of citizens chose him over his Democratic opponent.

Frightening as the present situation may be, it’s even scarier to recognize that we have only been three-quarters of a year under this leadership. How will three more years of this decline leave us? And suppose that period turns into an prolonged era, because there is nobody to limit this leader from determining that another term is essential, possibly for defense purposes?

Certainly, all is not lost. There will be legislative votes the coming year which might establish an alternate balance of power, if Democrats retake the Senate or House of parliament. We have government representatives who are attempting to impose certain responsibility, like representatives that are initiating an inquiry into the attempted cash appropriation by federal prosecutors.

And a leadership election in 2028 could initiate the path to recovery precisely as last year’s election placed us on this regrettable path.

There are millions of Americans demonstrating in urban areas of their cities, like they performed recently at democracy demonstrations.

An ex-cabinet member, wrote recently that “the dormant powerhouse of America is awakening”, just as it did post-McCarthyism during the fifties or throughout the sixties activism or in the Watergate scandal.

On those occasions, the tilting vessel eventually was righted.

He claims he knows the signs of that revival and sees it happening at present. As evidence, he references the widespread marches, the extensive, cross-party resistance regarding a broadcaster's firing and the near-unanimous refusal by journalists to accept the defense department’s demands they report only approved content.

“The dormant force consistently stays inactive until specific greed turns extremely harmful, a particular deed so disrespectful of the common good, some brutality so disruptive, that it has no choice other than to stir.”

It's a positive outlook, and I value his knowledgeable stance. Maybe he’ll be validated.

In the meantime, the big questions remain: is the US able to regain its footing? Can it retrieve its position internationally and its commitment to constitutional order?

Or do we need to admit that the historical project functioned for a period, and then – abruptly, completely – collapsed?

My cynical mind tells me that the final scenario is correct; that all may indeed be lost. My hopeful heart, though, tells me that we must try, through all methods available.

For me, working in journalism analysis, that’s about encouraging reporters to live up, more completely, to their purpose of overseeing leadership. For different individuals, it may be engaging with congressional campaigns, or planning demonstrations, or finding ways to safeguard electoral access.

Under twelve months back, we existed in a separate situation. A year from now? Or three years from now? The reality is, we cannot predict. All we can do is try to persevere.

What Offers Me Optimism Currently

The contact I experience during teaching with new media professionals, that are simultaneously idealistic and practical, {always