I write today with nothing except a wish to craft a New Year’s essay. I fear where it will go.
Let’s start here, with an acknowledgement that 2025 brought darkness and dread.
That sounds like hyperbole. It’s not.
Darkness and dread aptly frame a year during which the newly elected and their legions of Mini-Me’s and attention profiteers …
Celebrated attack, destruction, retribution and ridicule.
Hobbled the government, pardoned the unworthy, bowed to the private-jetters and scapegoated the least advantaged.
Rejoiced when firing, doxxing or expelling people for long-ago tweets or college papers, for “unacceptable” gender identities, for speaking.
Pursued people – on streets, in courthouses, at workplaces, in homes – and then imprisoned and deported them. For the “sins,” often, of being hardworking and brown.
Further shredded our fraying culture, amplifying our collective sense that we no longer even belong together.
And. And. And.
We’re madder, ruder, meaner, coarser, less trusting, less tolerant, more selfish, more hateful. And more frightened.
It was the year that broke America.
With more ahead.
So, Happy New Year?
Perhaps not.
Perhaps something less … cheery.
Hello, 2026.
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Amen, Jeff. Amen. I’m praying that 2026 will be kinder, gentler. If it isn’t, then God help us all. Happy New Year to **you**.