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One year ago, the environment was utterly different. Prior to the US presidential election, reflective residents could admit America's serious imperfections – its unfairness and disparity – but they still could see it as the US. A free society. A place where the rule of law held significance. A nation guided by a honorable and upright public servant, even with his advanced age and increasing frailty.

Nowadays, this autumn, countless Americans hardly identify the land we reside in. Persons suspected of being unauthorized foreigners are detained and forced into transport, occasionally blocked from fair treatment. The East Wing of the presidential residence – is being torn down for a grotesque ballroom. Donald Trump is harassing his opponents or alleged foes and demanding federal prosecutors transfer an enormous amount of public funds. Armed military personnel are dispatched to US urban areas on false pretexts. The Pentagon, relabeled the Department of War, has – in effect – freed itself of routine media oversight during its expenditure of potentially totaling close to a trillion USD in public funds. Universities, legal practices, journalism organizations are submitting under the president’s threats, and billionaires are treated like members of the royal family.

“The United States, only a few months ahead of its 250-year mark as the globe's top democratic nation, has crossed the edge into autocracy and fascism,” an American historian, stated this past summer. “In the end, faster than I thought feasible, it transpired in this country.”

Each day begins to new horrors. It is challenging to understand – and distressing to accept – how deeply lost we are, and the rapid pace with which it occurred.

However, we know that Trump was properly voted in. Following his deeply disturbing initial presidency and even after the alerts that came with the understanding of the rightwing blueprint – despite the president personally declared plainly he intended to be a dictator solely at the start – a majority of citizens chose him over his Democratic opponent.

Frightening as the current reality is, it’s even scarier to understand that we’re only three-quarters of a year into this administration. How will three more years of this deterioration position us? And if that timeframe becomes a more extended duration, as there is no one to limit this leader from deciding that a third term is necessary, perhaps for defense purposes?

Certainly, not everything is hopeless. There will be legislative votes next year which might create a new governmental control, in case Democrats recapture either chamber of parliament. There exist elected officials who are attempting to exert a degree of oversight, such as representatives currently starting a probe into the attempted money grab by federal prosecutors.

And a leadership election in the next cycle could initiate our journey toward restoration just as last year’s election placed us on this regrettable path.

There are millions of Americans marching in urban areas across municipalities, like they performed in the past days in the No Kings rallies.

An ex-cabinet member, wrote recently that “the great sleeping giant of the nation is stirring”, similar to past following the Red Scare during the fifties or throughout the Vietnam war protests or during the Watergate scandal.

During those times, the listing ship finally returned to balance.

He claims he knows the indicators of that resurgence and sees it happening now. As evidence, he points to the recent massive protests, the broad, bipartisan pushback to a personality's dismissal and the largely united defiance by media to accept military mandates they only publish authorized information.

“The sleeping giant always remains asleep till some venality turns extremely harmful, some action so disrespectful toward public welfare, some brutality so disruptive, that it is compelled but to awaken.”

It’s an optimistic take, and I value his knowledgeable stance. Perhaps he will turn out correct.

Meanwhile, the major inquiries remain: will the nation ever recover? Can it retrieve its position internationally and its adherence to legal principles?

Or do we need to admit that the national endeavor worked for a while, and then – swiftly, totally – ended?

My pessimistic brain suggests that the final scenario is accurate; that all may indeed be gone. My hopeful heart, nevertheless, tells me that we need to strive, through all methods we can.

For me, working in journalism analysis, that’s about encouraging reporters to live up, more thoroughly, to their mission of overseeing leadership. For some people, it could mean engaging with congressional campaigns, or coordinating protests, or finding ways to protect electoral access.

Less than a year ago, we existed in a very different place. Twelve months later? Or after another term? The truth is, we are uncertain. All we can do is to strive to not give up.

What’s Giving Me Encouragement Today

The engagement I encounter in the classroom with aspiring reporters, that are simultaneously idealistic and realistic, {always