"Year-End Thoughts on Today's Politics"

 We will be away through Christmas visiting children and grandchildren, so this may be my last essay for 2026; though I am working on two personal essays and a book review. But if this is the last one, I wish you the happiest of holidays and the healthiest of New Years.  The attached photo was taken this past summer of Caroline and me on the beach in Sea Bright, New Jersey – where Caroline spent summers growing up and where we have been going for the past sixty years.

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Year-End Thoughts on Today’s Politics”

December 19, 2025

 

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language.

And next year’s words await another voice.”

                                                                                                                T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

                                                                                                                The Four Quartets

                                                                                                                “Little Gidding,” 1942

 

Year-end is a good time to take stock of where we are and where we may be headed. This year those questions seem particularly relevant. Polarization defines politics today. Extremists in both parties barely talk to one another, yet they dominate the news. Perhaps it is age, but I rarely watch televised news. Whether it is Fox on the right, or MSNBC, CNN or any of the networks on the left, newscasters and commentators, with rare exceptions, preach to their choirs. While pundits and politicians reflect this division, the rest of us are at risk of a similar hatred infiltrating our beings. We cannot let that happen. While Trump gets blamed – and he has done nothing to abate the loathing that divides us – this divisiveness has been building for two decades, at least since the Iraq-Afghanistan war.

 

While extremists consume most of the oxygen, most people are, I believe, centrists in their beliefs and in their politics. We should always remember that the extreme right (fascism and Nazism) and the extreme left (socialism and Communism) have more in common than differences. Both are authoritarian. Both rely on ignorance and dependency on the state. Both are evil. Hitler was responsible for an estimated 13-17 million deaths; Stalin for between 10 and 20 million, and Mao Tse-Tung for an estimated 38-107 million lives. Both are elitist, in that only a minority are party members. Vladimir Putin, with an estimated net worth of $70 billion, is considered the world’s wealthiest political leader, despite Russia being a failing state. Xi Jinping’s wealth is unknown but estimates put it in the hundreds of millions. Politics, which is profitable for dictators, is not a horizontal line, with a left and a right, but a vertical between authoritarianism and anarchy.

 

And the world is changing, not just in what technology has wrought in terms of social media and in how artificial intelligence will affect jobs and lives, but also geopolitically: In 1990, Japan and the Soviet Union were the second and third largest economies. Today, Japan is fourth and Russia is ninth. In 1990, neither China nor India ranked among the top ten world economies. Today, they are second and fifth, respectively. 

 

Much has been written about the recent National Security Strategy report. To the New York Times, its key point was “hostility to Europe.” The Wall Street Journal headlined: “U.S. flips history by Casting Europe – not Russia – as Villian in New Security Policy.” The Economist wrote of President Trump’s “bleak, incoherent foreign policy.” Those pieces are mostly balderdash. The best piece I read on the report was by George Friedman, the Hungarian-born, 76-year-old political scientist, author and founder of Geopolitical Futures. He wrote that its three main points are: 1) “The United States wants close economic ties with China, as well as an end to military tensions;” 2) “Europe is responsible for its own defense and is now capable of defending itself;” and 3) “The primary strategic interest of the United States is the Western Hemisphere.” The document, Mr. Friedman added, “is simply the summation of the reality the U.S. is now in.”

 

Nevertheless, there is much that concerns me beyond polarization, the effect of AI on jobs, and the role of the U.S. in the world as it is: Rising anti-Semitism across the globe, as the horrific carnage on Australia’s Bondi Beach demonstrated – only the latest example; federal and state debt, fueled by unsustainable welfare programs; demographics, which have us with more people over 65 than under 18 – a problem for every country in the West, except Israel; President Trump’s state capitalism, where the state does not own businesses but uses its power to influence behavior; The effect of newly elected New York City Mayor, Socialist-leaning Zohran Mamdani, who in his victory speech on November 4^th declared: “We will prove there is no problem too large for government to solve and no concern too small for it to care about” – how different from President Reagan in 1986 when he spoke of “...the nine most terrifying words in the English language.”; the seemingly indiscriminate removal of aliens without due process, some of whom have lived and worked in this country for years; capital markets where interest rates were kept excessively low for much of the past decade and a half, which fueled asset appreciation, sending stocks to historically high multiples, and which propelled gold and silver prices and promoted questionable assets like crypto currencies; and an economy, freed from excessive regulation and taxation, that is burdened with tariffs. Overseas, Russia is a wild card, as its population and economic clout are in decline, yet it remains the country with the most confirmed nuclear weapons – 5,500. The image of a cornered rat comes to mind. China’s Belt & Road Initiative, first announced in 2013 as a means of connecting Asia, Europe and Africa, now operates in over 150 countries, including 53 countries in Africa, 29 countries in Europe and 22 countries in Latin America. Propaganda and politics willfollow.

 

On the other hand, all is not bleak. Our borders have been secured; criminal illegals are being tossed out; climate scare mongers appear to be in retreat, as does Wokeism. Universities seem to be moving toward greater freedom to speak, to disagree. The Supreme Court, under John Roberts and with the appointees of Donald Trump in his first term, has witnessed a return to common sense. Europe is beginning to acknowledge that unsustainable welfare programs have hampered living standards and economic growth, and that they must pay a greater share for self-defense. The Abraham Accords give hope for peace in the Middle East. The deployment of several naval vessels from the Fourth Fleet to waters off Venezuela is not just about halting the drug cartels; it is an indication that the U.S. takes seriously the incursion of China, Russia and Iran into the Western Hemisphere. As for AI, keep in mind that creative destruction is a natural condition of economic growth in an innovative society. As Brian Gross wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal, “...when tools change human creativity doesn’t shrink, it expands.”

 

So what is on order for 2026, besides my 85^th birthday next month, February winter Olympics in Italy, the celebration of the 250^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4^th, and mid-term elections on November 3rd? I am neither a prophet nor a seer, so haven’t a clue. My concerns stated above are for situations over which I have no control. I am fortunate in my family, my wife, children and grandchildren, and in the large extended family that includes my siblings and their families. I am fortunate in the friends I have, some of whom I see weekly at ROMEO lunches, and others that I see rarely but are often in my thoughts. As for Mr. Trump, I am not a personal fan. I am old enough to believe that civility and manners serve us well. But I do believe that, with his lack of an ideology and for all his faults, he sees the world as it is, not as some would like it to be. And he has provided Americans a cultural self-confidence, something missing when DEI reigned. For that I am thankful.

 

I thank you for your forbearance with my essays over the past year, and I send you best wishes for the Holidays and wish you good health and happiness in the New Year.