Imagine

When I started writing this year’s blog posts back on January 3, 2025, I had no illusions that it would be an easy 365 days in America. My first clue should have been naming the annual category “Survive ’25.” I knew it was going to be a bumpy ride politically. But knowing our dear friend would be in the hospital for nearly 50 of those first 365 days wasn’t on my bingo card. Or hers, I imagine. By the grace of God, along with her devoted spouse and incredible persistence and determination, she’s doing just fine, thanks. I’d also like to think our text-thread support team helped as well. Another dear friend with too-numerous-to-mention health issues always manages to write “I am grateful” somewhere in her texts. Rarely says a cross word about anyone or anything. I admire that but quite often fail at emulating her. (As a needlepoint pillow my late mother had read: “If you can’t say something nice about somebody, come sit next to me.”) Yet another close friend was released from the hospital this afternoon. We pray this is the last time and that she’s on the road to recovery and beginning a healthier new year. Luckily, both of my sisters are aging pretty well, so it gives me hope that our parents’ genes will allow us to carry on for quite some time. Closer to home, Rebecca’s resilience is uncompromising. So much so, that I resist complaining about anything, such as when my new left knee stiffens up if I sit on my lazy arse too long. Suck it up, buttercup!

For us, it’s all good. We are grateful and blessed. And we don’t take a moment for granted. With age, comes wisdom.

That said, I never imagined 2025 would also be so bad, politically speaking of course. Even the New Yorker magazine has described as the Golden Age of Awful.

How awful was it? Glad you asked. It was so awful that …

Absurdity was an everyday occurrence.

Chaos reigned supreme.

Flooding the zone ruled news cycles. Deflect, delay, deny. See if anyone notices, then open the floodgates with something else. Even I cut down on my screen time.

Misery loved no company, affecting only those who did not deserve it.

The cruelty-is-the-point mantra became the reason for everything awful. And by that, I mean MAGA-based random acts of meanness. There, I said it.

And yet the world keeps on turning.

The buffoonery of DOGE, Elmo Musk and his heartless tech bros hired to cut waste, fraud and spending was like a bad Lifetime movie. This wasn’t fiction, however. All of the Department of Government Efficiency’s quick and dirty illegal firings of thousands of people was real. Funding cuts for pediatric cancer research. Shutting down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), in turn causing hundreds of thousands of needless deaths. Real.

The One Big Ugly signature legislative “achievement” (yes, there was one) that manages to cut social services and explode the national debt for the sole purpose of creating the largest transfer of wealth from the bottom half of the country to the top “that we’ve ever seen.” That wasn’t hyperbole. Perhaps you expected a little something for yourself in an 870-page bill.

Then there are these godawful things:

• The Epstein Files.
• Assassinations.
• Mass shootings.
• The issuing of commutations or pardons of 1,500 people convicted or charged in connection with the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
• Vicious attacks on immigration, legal or otherwise, and ICE raids trampling on constitutional rights.
• The worldwide perversion and abandonment of our nation’s democratic principles and rule of law. (Small “d” is not a typo here.)

The good news is that we have a chance to save our American experiment. We’ve done it before.

Out with cruelty. In with hope for a change in 2026.

Happy New Year. Imagine that.

(YouTube: “Imagine” is John Lennon’s classic song from 1971 from the album of the same name. It was the best-selling single of his solo career. Lennon also credited his wife, Yoko Ono, with much of the song’s lyrics and content. Watch this haunting black and white music video, keeping in mind that it came out 55 years ago. “You may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one.”)