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One year ago, the landscape was entirely different. Prior to the American presidential vote, reflective Americans could admit the country's significant faults – its injustices and inequality – yet they could still perceive it as America. A democracy. A place where legal governance held significance. A nation headed by a honorable and decent public servant, notwithstanding his advanced age and growing weakness.

Currently, this autumn, numerous citizens hardly identify the country we live in. People alleged as undocumented migrants are detained and shoved into vans, occasionally blocked from fair treatment. The left side of the presidential residence – is being torn down for an obscene event space. The president is persecuting his adversaries or supposed enemies and insisting the justice department transfer a massive sum of citizen dollars. Soldiers with weapons are being sent to US urban areas on false pretexts. The Pentagon, relabeled the War Department, has – in effect – rid itself of routine media oversight as it spends possibly reaching close to a trillion USD from citizen taxes. Institutions, law firms, journalism organizations are yielding from leader's menaces, and wealthy elites are handled as aristocracy.

“The United States, just months before its 250-year mark as the globe's top democratic nation, has fallen over the brink toward dictatorship and extremism,” Garrett Graff, wrote this past summer. “Ultimately, more quickly than I believed likely, it did happen in America.”

Every morning starts to new horrors. And it's hard to comprehend – and agonizing to acknowledge – how severely declined we have become, and the rapid pace with which it unfolded.

However, we understand that Trump was duly elected. Despite his profoundly alarming initial presidency and following the warnings that came with the knowledge of the conservative plan – even after the president personally declared plainly he intended to rule as a tyrant just on day one – a majority of citizens elected him over his Democratic opponent.

As terrifying as today's circumstances are, it’s even scarier to understand that we are just several months into this administration. How will three more years of this downfall leave us? And what if that period turns into an prolonged era, since there is not anyone to restrain this leader from deciding that additional tenure is necessary, perhaps for security concerns?

Certainly, there is still hope. We will have congressional elections the coming year that could bring a different political equilibrium, should Democrats retake either chamber of parliament. There exist government representatives who are trying to apply a degree of oversight, for example Democratic congressmen currently initiating an inquiry regarding the effort to money grab by federal prosecutors.

And a national vote three years from now could start our journey to recovery just as the prior selection set us on this unfortunate course.

There exist numerous residents protesting in the streets throughout communities, as they did in the past days in the No Kings rallies.

A former official, wrote recently that “the dormant powerhouse of the nation is rising”, similar to past following the Red Scare in that decade or throughout the sixties activism or throughout the Nixon controversy.

During those times, the unstable nation eventually was righted.

Reich says he recognizes the signals of that resurgence and notices it unfolding now. As evidence, he points to the widespread marches, the broad, cross-party resistance regarding a personality's dismissal and the near-unanimous refusal by journalists to agree to the defense department’s demands they solely cover approved content.

“The dormant force consistently stays asleep until certain corruption becomes so noxious, an specific act so disrespectful of the common good, certain violence so disruptive, that it has no choice but to awaken.”

It’s an optimistic take, and I respect the author's seasoned opinion. Perhaps he will prove to be right.

In the meantime, the major inquiries remain: can America ever recover? Is it possible to restore its status globally and its devotion to constitutional order?

Or must we acknowledge that the historical project worked for a while, and then – suddenly, utterly – failed?

My negative thoughts indicates that the second option is correct; that everything could be gone. My hopeful heart, nevertheless, convinces me that we must try, in whatever ways available.

In my case, as an observer of the press, that means encouraging reporters to live up, more fully, to their duty of scrutinizing authority. For others, it could mean participating in election efforts, or planning demonstrations, or discovering methods to safeguard voting rights.

Less than a year ago, we lived in an alternate reality. A year from now? Or three years from now? The fact is, we are uncertain. Our sole course is try to not give up.

What’s Giving Me Optimism Currently

The interaction I have during teaching with young journalists, that are simultaneously visionary and realistic, {always