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One year ago, the landscape was completely separate. Before the US presidential election, considerate citizens could recognize America's serious imperfections – its inequities and inequality – yet they still could see it as America. A democracy. A land where constitutional order held significance. A country led by a respectable and upright official, notwithstanding his older age and increasing frailty.

Nowadays, this autumn, numerous citizens scarcely know the land we inhabit. Persons suspected of being unauthorized foreigners are detained and shoved into vans, sometimes denied due process. The left side of the White House – is undergoing demolition for a grotesque ballroom. The president is persecuting his adversaries or supposed enemies and requesting the justice department hand over an enormous amount of public funds. Armed military personnel are deployed to US urban areas under fabricated reasons. The defense headquarters, rebranded the War Department, has practically rid itself of regular press examination as it spends potentially totaling close to a trillion USD in public funds. Colleges, legal practices, news companies are submitting under the president’s threats, and billionaires are handled as nobility.

“The United States, just months before its 250-year mark as the world’s leading democracy, has tipped over the brink into autocracy and fascism,” a noted author, stated this past summer. “Finally, swifter than I believed likely, it did happen here.”

Every morning starts amid recent atrocities. And it is challenging to understand – and distressing to accept – how deeply lost our nation is, and the rapid pace with which it occurred.

However, it is known that the leader was properly voted in. Even after his deeply disturbing first term and even after the warnings that came with the understanding of the conservative plan – following the president personally stated openly he planned to act as an autocrat only on the first day – a majority of citizens chose him instead of the other candidate.

While alarming as today's circumstances is, it's more frightening to realize that we are just three-quarters of a year under this leadership. Where will another 36 months of this downfall find us? And what if the three years becomes something even longer, since there is nobody to stop this leader from opting that another term is essential, maybe for defense purposes?

Admittedly, not everything is hopeless. There are midterm elections the coming year that may bring a different political equilibrium, if Democrats regain one or both houses of Congress. There exist elected officials who are attempting to apply a degree of oversight, such as lawmakers who are initiating an inquiry into the attempted money grab from legal authorities.

And a leadership election in the next cycle could start the path toward restoration exactly as the previous vote put us on this disappointing trajectory.

There are millions of Americans protesting in public spaces throughout communities, as they did recently at democracy demonstrations.

A former official, commented this week that “the great sleeping giant of the nation is stirring”, exactly as before post-McCarthyism during the fifties or throughout anti-war demonstrations or during the seventies crisis.

On those occasions, the tilting vessel eventually was righted.

Reich says he knows the signs of that awakening and observes it occurring at present. For proof, he points to the large-scale demonstrations, the broad, cross-party resistance to a broadcaster's firing and the near-unanimous rejection by reporters to sign the defense department’s demands they solely cover what is sanctioned.

“The sleeping giant always remains dormant before some venality turns extremely harmful, an specific act so offensive of societal benefit, some brutality so noisy, that it is compelled except to rise.”

It’s an optimistic take, and I appreciate Reich’s experienced view. Perhaps he will prove to be right.

Meanwhile, the big questions remain: can America regain its footing? Can it retrieve its position internationally and its adherence to the rule of law?

Or should we recognize that the 250-year-old experiment succeeded temporarily, and then – suddenly, utterly – failed?

My pessimistic brain suggests that the final scenario is correct; that everything could be gone. My positive feelings, however, convinces me that we need to strive, in whatever ways available.

For me, as an observer of the press, that’s about urging journalists to adhere, more fully, to their duty of scrutinizing authority. For different individuals, it might involve engaging with election efforts, or organizing rallies, or discovering methods to safeguard ballot privileges.

Less than a year ago, we lived in a separate situation. In the future? Or after another term? The reality is, we are uncertain. Our sole course is to strive to persevere.

What Provides Me Hope Now

The engagement I experience in the classroom with new media professionals, who are equally visionary and grounded, {always