This Most Pivotal Year

Let's not fear 2025. Let's embrace the opportunity to prove what matters.

(Photo by Marut Khobtakhob via Getty Images)

Well, we’ve made it to 2025. So, of course, I’d like to wish you a Happy New Year!

But I wouldn’t be honest if I served up celebratory bromides like “It’s going to be a great year!” or “I’m counting on the best year ever!” Truth is, it will be a particularly challenging year as we address the acceleration of oligarchic, kleptocratic and authoritarian rule. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I dread the inauguration on Jan. 20 of convicted felon, lead insurrectionist, malignant narcissist, vengeful sadist and Vladimir Putin sycophant Donald Trump.

But, as committed as I am to facing facts and telling the truth as clearly as I can, I am optimistic by nature. And as tough and painful as the year ahead will be, it would be a mistake to linger in the darkness among the doomsayers—all those “smart” apocalyptic, know-it-all people who are convinced that “it’s all over” and we should be resigned to that fate. As I’ve written before, we must say no to such cynicism dressed up as wisdom.

I started publishing America, America in February of 2021 with an opening essay called “Silence Is Not an Option.” I began in the wake of the violent Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, one of the darkest days in our nation’s history. As much as I was fueled by outrage—as much as our democracy, human decency and truth itself were under attack—I sought to hold dearly to my belief in the promise of America and its capacity to make lives better.

Nearly four years later, even after America has chosen to reinsert the danger that is Donald Trump, I remain dedicated to the promise of America. If it was important to fight for it then, it’s even more important now. To stand up. To speak out. To do something.

And honestly? As tumultuous as this year will be, I am hopeful because of all the good people who are part of this community. Who still care about knowing and telling the truth. Who are motivated to oppose the worst among us. Who recognize that the only way forward is—Damn the torpedoes!—straight ahead.

It’s worth recalling President John F. Kennedy’s 1962 speech at Rice University in which he described his commitment to America reaching the moon. He called it “the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.”

That visionary speech included his oft-repeated phrase that America should do such things “not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” But I think it’s worth reading the entire sentence that more fully defined what that momentous endeavor would require:

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

Well, in this pivotal year of 2025, it might be worth thinking about the overcoming of the oligarchs and the fascists, the miscreants and the incompetents, the white nationalists and all the other bigots who are ready to applaud democracy’s demise as our generation’s version of reaching to the moon. We will pursue it not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard.

The doubters and the doomsayers and all the other “clever” skeptics and cynics may think about giving up. But not those of us who still possess the ability to see through the darkness and the treacherous path that lies ahead. No, we will not postpone our effort—and, as JFK insisted, “we intend to win.”

Getting there will take sober analysis of the facts and as vivid an articulation of what’s happening and what’s at stake as we can muster. It will require assessing what we can concretely do, both to wake up the leaders who must help drive the opposition and to protect the vulnerable among us who are at the greatest risk from this coming regime’s cruel agenda. It will also mean finding nourishment in a community that cares about democracy and decency and will not just stand idly by. (And, yes, it will also demand knowing when to take a break—to turn off the news and focus on family and friends and your personal well-being.)

So, on this first day of this most pivotal year, as we forge ahead not because it’s easy, I pledge to do what I can. I hope that you will find my essays and other content on America, America to be a useful source to help make sense of things, hold onto your sanity and know that you are not alone. I expect that will include some new formats and some additional voices as this year unfolds.

2025 is a chance to demonstrate that we are not about to be sidetracked from our mission or ruined by depraved and degrading leadership that believes its interests are all that matter. This year is our opportunity to prove—as so many Americans have before us—that the principles of democracy and the values of equality are worth fighting for, especially when it’s hard.

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