A Heartbreaking Transformation Just One Year Has Made in America
Twelve months back, the landscape was completely different. Before the American presidential vote, considerate residents could admit the country's serious imperfections – its injustices and disparity – but they continued to perceive it as the United States. A free society. A country where legal governance held significance. A nation guided by a respectable and upright leader, even with his advanced age and declining health.
These days, this autumn, countless Americans barely recognize the country we reside in. People suspected of being undocumented migrants are detained and shoved into transport, sometimes refused legal rights. The eastern section of the White House – is being destroyed for a grotesque ballroom. Donald Trump is harassing his political rivals or alleged foes and requesting the justice department transfer a massive sum of public funds. Uniformed troops are dispatched across metropolitan centers under fabricated reasons. The military command, rebranded the Department of War, has practically rid itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny during its expenditure of potentially totaling nearly $1tn in public funds. Colleges, attorney offices, journalism organizations are buckling due to presidential intimidation, and billionaires are regarded as nobility.
“The United States, shortly prior to its 250th birthday as the globe's top democratic nation, has crossed the brink toward dictatorship and totalitarianism,” Garrett Graff, commented in August. “Finally, more quickly than I imagined possible, it did happen in this country.”
One awakes amid recent atrocities. And it's hard to comprehend – and distressing to accept – just how far gone our nation is, and the speed at which it occurred.
Nevertheless, we know that Trump was duly elected. Following his deeply disturbing previous administration and despite the warnings linked to the knowledge of the conservative plan – despite the president personally said publicly he would be a dictator only on the first day – enough Americans selected him over his Democratic opponent.
While alarming as the current reality may be, it's more daunting to realize that we are just several months under this leadership. What will another 36 months of this downfall find us? And if that period transforms into something even longer, because there is no one to limit this president from deciding that another term is required, perhaps for national security reasons?
Granted, all is not lost. We will have midterm elections the coming year which might create a new governmental control, in case Democrats retake the Senate or House of the legislature. There are government representatives who are attempting to apply a degree of oversight, such as Democratic congressmen currently starting a probe into the attempted cash appropriation by federal prosecutors.
And a national vote in the next cycle could begin the path to healing precisely as the prior selection set us on this disappointing trajectory.
There exist numerous residents marching in urban areas across municipalities, as they did last weekend at democracy demonstrations.
Robert Reich, wrote recently that “the great sleeping giant of the nation is awakening”, just as it did after the Communist witch-hunt era in that decade or amid the Vietnam war protests or throughout the seventies crisis.
On those occasions, the listing ship ultimately corrected itself.
The author states he knows the signals of that revival and sees it happening now. As support, he references the large-scale demonstrations, the widespread, multi-faction opposition to a television host's removal and the near-unanimous refusal by journalists to sign military mandates they only publish authorized information.
“The slumbering entity consistently stays dormant till specific greed turns extremely harmful, a particular deed so offensive of societal benefit, certain violence so loud, that the giant is compelled but to awaken.”
It's a positive outlook, and I value Reich’s experienced view. Perhaps he will prove to be right.
In the meantime, the big questions remain: will the nation regain its footing? Is it possible to restore its position internationally and its commitment to constitutional order?
Or should we recognize that the 250-year-old experiment worked for a while, and then – suddenly, utterly – failed?
My pessimistic brain tells me that the latter is correct; that everything might be finished. My hopeful heart, nevertheless, advises me that we need to strive, in whatever ways possible.
Personally, as a media critic, that involves urging journalists to adhere, more fully, to their mission of overseeing leadership. For others, it could mean engaging with congressional campaigns, or planning demonstrations, or discovering methods to protect ballot privileges.
Less than a year ago, we were in an alternate reality. In the future? Or in several years? The fact is, we cannot predict. All we can do is try to not give up.
What’s Giving Me Hope Now
The engagement I have with students with aspiring reporters, that are simultaneously visionary and realistic, {always
