2025 has been a terrible year. It was terrible even before it began for reasons that readers of these pages will understand. The anticipation of another four years, a continuation of the 45th president’s first four, couldn’t be avoided. The anticipation, however, didn’t prepare us for the onslaught that began on January 20. 

Nothing could have prepared us for the cruelty, the deliberate disregard of norms, laws and traditions—not to mention the Constitution—that ensued. Not surprisingly, one blow came almost instantly after another—pardons of felons, deportations of immigrants who had lived productively for years in the United States, the brutal treatment of federal workers using bogus justifications for their dismissal, the destruction of our medical research establishment, waging vendettas with federal prosecutions,  self-enrichment that bordered on and often overstepped the line of corruption including what had the clear appearance of bribery, unilateral invocation of tariffs on imports in violation of trade agreements and the Constitution, public displays of misogyny, use of the military in American cities for transparently false reasons and cruelty—deliberate meanness—both for its own sake and to install fear to silence opposition.

I haven’t written for some time because I confess that after a while I was overwhelmed by it all. Some time ago I wrote that it was difficult to focus on one action because another followed so quickly. I could have written daily, which would have been a lot for me and too much for anyone reading what I wrote. I felt guilty being the bearer, not so much of bad news because everyone knew what I was writing about before I wrote, but of depressing commentary. (One would have to be a Pollyanna to write cheerfully about public events lately).

The danger is that we may become accustomed to what should offend and enrage us. What we are experiencing isn’t normal, and we cannot allow ourselves to accept this new reality. Precedents unfortunately are being set, there to be called up by future bad actors. We can’t do anything about that, but we have to remember and continue to embrace the values that were the foundation of our democracy.

Some actions have been absurd:

• At the same time that the American military is blowing up boats of supposed drug dealers, the 47th President pardoned the former president of Honduras, convicted in an American court of facilitating the transport of thousand of pounds of cocaine into the United States.
• After Trump sent National Guard troops to Washington, D.C.,  purportedly to fight a nonexistent crime wave, District police had to patrol with the troops to protect them after one of them was murdered and another critically wounded.

The result for many, perhaps most of us, after being pounded daily by one outrage after another is a psychological numbness. We may be shocked but not surprised. It’s tempting to turn our backs and try to ignore public events—to turn our televisions away from news and stop reading newspapers. Whether we pay attention or not, though, the damage continues.

The destruction of the East Wing of the White House without any public discussion or official review is an ironic symbol of the past 11 months. The current President, intent on erecting a lasting monument to his tenure, announced his plan and then executed it.

Destruction is the mot juste for much of what has happened over the past year. There’s little that was constructive, the Big Beautiful Bill to the contrary notwithstanding.

In a sense that action was mild compared to the deliberate baiting of Canada and the systematic abandonment of decades old alliances and allies and the accompanying embrace of Russia in their place. The red carpet was literally rolled out for Vladimir Putin, fulfilling one of his goals. Ukraine’s self defense in the face of Russian aggression was met by an ambiguous, on again, off again response by this administration.

We find ourselves adrift in this new reality where so much of what we have come to expect and embrace as our foundational beliefs have been violated. We are no longer a welcoming country. We struggle to maintain the rule of law. We have abandoned our tradition of generosity and enlightened self interest. We tolerate racism and anti-semitism from our leaders and right wing media. We embrace autocratic leaders from other countries. Congressional Republicans, abandoning their constitutional role, whether from party loyalty, support for the President or cowardice, remain supine in the face of the violation and destruction of the Constitution, laws, norms and values.

We have so many pressing issues at home and abroad that either are not being addressed or pushed in the wrong direction that it may take generations to repair the damage done.

The failure of Congress is bad enough. Worse, however, is the apparent acceptance by millions of fellow citizens who may not share our alarm and outrage, as though what has happened was business as usual.

The good news is that a large portion of the public apparently has finally come to reject much of what has been done since January 20. The bad news is that we don’t have a parliamentary system. Presidents are elected for four years, and, barring impeachment and conviction, they serve out their terms regardless of popularity or poll numbers.

What remains, regardless, is the embarrassment of having a profoundly damaged human being, unprincipled, uncaring and of demonstrable low character leading our nation. The question is where is he leading us?

Let’s hope that 2026 is better. Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas.