Another Year Gone
Reflections on 2025, as we roll into 2026
So another year has come and gone. Technically, it ends in two days. Whatever. Ask me what I’ll be doing on New Year’s Eve and the answer will likely be “sleeping.” The allure of staying up to ring in the new year wore off a long time ago. I did the parties. I did the Times Square thing. It’s kind of like birthdays at this point: every new one means I’m that much closer to dying.
With that sunny and jovial opening, I suppose it’s time to look back at 2025 and do a brief year-in-review.
Where do we start? Well, it makes sense to begin with the elephant in the room: Donald Trump. The president made many promises on the campaign trail about what he’d do, and he’s tried to keep them. Tariffs, a crackdown on illegal immigration, legal retribution, exerting executive power, pardons, tax cuts — he promised all of it, and he’s carrying out much of it.
The results of those promises, however, haven’t necessarily come to fruition. Trump is famous for bold pledges, such as lowering prices, but he has no real control over prices. That said, his love of tariffs — which he falsely claims are paid by foreign countries (they’re paid by domestic importers) — has led to higher prices, something Trump seems to wave off with a silly reference to how many dolls a small girl really needs.
Trump also made bold promises to bring back jobs and rebuild towns and cities. Nothing he has done has meaningfully advanced those goals. Yes, many companies have pledged billions in investment, but those investments are going to places where infrastructure and a skilled workforce already exist. Those small towns that once bustled as manufacturing hubs before plants shut down are not getting an Amazon distribution center or an Nvidia factory.
We’re in an era similar to the end of the 19th century and the Industrial Revolution, which fundamentally reshaped the American economy. Artificial intelligence and technology are doing the same today, just as they’ve been doing for the past 20 years. You cannot stop progress, and you certainly aren’t going to do it with tariffs. The promises made by Trump and those in his orbit that their policies will revive dying towns and cities are nothing but lies. And when they’re no longer around, they’ll simply point to whoever is sitting in the Oval Office and say, “Ask them.” Or they’ll blame illegal immigration or “the globalists.” It’s all so trite and juvenile.
Trump has been effective on illegal immigration after it exploded under Joe Biden. Naturally, it’s gone ridiculously overboard, with televised ICE raids and absurd social-media campaigns featuring DHS Secretary Kristy Noem cosplaying as a door-kicking agent hunting criminals. The raids and policies have led to chaos, which is exactly what Trump likes. It keeps him at the center of attention — and that matters to him more than anything else.
\Trump has also used the Justice Department as a political weapon against perceived enemies, pursuing inane indictments against James Comey and Letitia James. Even if you think both are ridiculous people (they are), and even if you believe James abused her authority as New York’s attorney general to bring dumb cases against Trump (she did), the logic of “we must do it too” is the worst kind of response. All it does is swing the pendulum in the opposite direction until it becomes counterproductive.
I could easily write another 1,000 words about Trump’s first year, because it’s moved at a dizzying pace. His biggest flaw — and it’s been true since day one — is that he can’t keep his mouth shut long enough for anything to cool down. Remember what Madonna said? “There is no such thing as bad publicity. Worry when they’re not talking about you.” That’s Trump in a nutshell. If he senses he’s no longer the center of attention, you can bet he’ll hop on Truth Social and post something outrageous.
The press will swarm, his minions will explain it away, and his lackeys will defend it. The only thing that ever saves him is the next news cycle that buries whatever idiotic thing he said. His reaction to the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife is a perfect example. What he said was peak Trump. I don’t think it had even been revealed at that point that Reiner and his wife, Michele, were murdered — let alone by their son — but who cares? A man and his wife were dead. Trump made it about himself, and it was just gross. Watching people defend it or “whatabout” it away was even more grotesque.
I don’t give a rat’s ass about Reiner’s politics or anything he ever said or did. He was a terrific filmmaker, a great character actor (see his turn in The Wolf of Wall Street), and, most importantly, a human being. I can’t imagine the last moments of my life ending at the hands of one of my own children. It’s horrifying.
As for the Democrats, they’re responding with their usual ineptitude and hoping Trump’s excesses will be enough to hand them back control of the House — and they probably will. But they still have serious national-level problems, and those won’t disappear if they continue to defer to the far left. There are cracks, but they need to break free if they want any shot in 2028.
On the professional front, I left Fox News after about three years. Fox was a good company, but it was still a corporation — and a very controlling one. I had little freedom to do much of anything, and frankly, it was stifling. I was also tired of chasing news. Some people like to pretend that audience-driven content is a Fox-only phenomenon, which is nonsense. CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, and plenty of other outlets have teams dedicated to analyzing data and publishing what their audiences want to read. That’s simply a fact. Bryan Stelter can talk all he wants about CNN’s global bureaus; it doesn’t change reality. These organizations employ people whose sole job is to serve “the audience.”
Working in communications is different, but it gives me the freedom to write — including this newsletter. It also means I can finally finish my novel. The first draft is done; now I mean done done. Whether it gets traditionally published or self-published, we’ll see.
I also discovered that woodworking wasn’t for me. I learned a lot, and it helped when I rebuilt my deck last spring, but it was the automotive bug that really bit. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. Last weekend I changed the radiator in my stepdaughter’s car, and instead of paying $100 for oil changes, I’m doing them myself. This weekend I’ll be installing new spark plugs in Andrea’s Pacifica — a job that takes way longer than it should because I have to remove the manifold. SMH.
Still, it’s fun — as fun as I remember it being when I was 17 to 21, buying shitboxes and running them into the ground after fixing them with junkyard parts. A few months ago, I picked up a project vehicle: a 1992 Dodge Dakota regular cab, long bed. It needs work, but it runs, drives, and stops. The cassette player works, the interior is clean, and the body and frame aren’t rusted out.
It just sucks trying to work on cars when it’s 25 degrees outside.
On the health front, I finally reached a place where I’ve consistently lost weight throughout the year — about 50 pounds since last February. Starting now, I’ll be adding regular exercise to rebuild muscle and cardio and keep the heart strong.
I guess that’s all for now. Here’s to 2026. Are you looking forward to anything new?