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Gavin Newsom, like a lot of Democrats, did not seem to enjoy 2025 very much. In a recent press release, he called 2025 “the year that would not end” and said it “was marked by historic firestorms, federal hostility, and Donald Trump’s assault on our freedom and democracy.”
To be fair, there are Republicans who think that, too. And 2025 has been brutal in so many ways, from the terror attack in New Orleans that began the year, to the devastating flooding at Camp Mystic in Texas, to the Charlie Kirk assassination, to the Minnesota church shooting.
In other words, there are a lot of us who are happy to show 2025 the door.
But most of us aren’t doing what the Los Angeles Times suggests we should do to end the “no good, very bad year.” The Times suggests a variety of rituals, including burning sage to banish negativity, primal-screaming into the void, and rage-smashing a car.
The latter sounds like a joke, but it’s actually a thing at Los Angeles “rage rooms” where people “don protective gear while wrecking an entire automobile — windows, doors, headlights and all — to the angry playlist of their choice."
It’s the antithesis of raising “a cup of kindness” among friends to ring in the new year.
The Times’ suggestions were ostensibly designed to be comical, but they were also more fitting for California than, say, America’s heartland. That’s because Democrats are angrier than usual these days, according to new research from Pew.
According to Pew, “The share of Democrats who are angry toward the federal government has hit a new high,” with 44% of Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents saying they feel angry. Only 8% said they were “basically content.”
In contrast, Pew said, “40% of Republicans and Republican leaners say they are basically content. Half express frustration, and just 9% say they feel anger.”
While the report notes that anger levels shift depending on which party controls the White House, Democrats are angrier than they’ve ever been, and they’re angrier than Republicans were when Joe Biden and Barack Obama were president. (Republican anger peaked then at 35% and 38%, respectively.)
“GOP contentment is higher now than at any point in the previous Trump administration, and the highest share since Republican George W. Bush’s first term,” the report said.
So don’t be misled by all the infighting on social media. Tucker Carlson and Mark Levin may need to work out their differences in a California rage room, and plenty of conservatives have legitimate concerns about some things the Trump administration is doing with one year down and three to go. But it’s OK to be content and even hopeful as the new year dawns. A lot of your fellow Americans are.
Media distrust: How low can it go?
A few months ago, it was reported that trust in traditional media had fallen to 28% — a figure that Elon Musk and others have celebrated, despite the importance that legacy news organizations have played — and continue to play — in holding power to account.
But there’s no disputing the fact that the new media is punching with considerable weight too. Consider the media story of the year — the ascension of Bari Weiss to CBS — and also the reporting by a YouTube personality that has led to a federal investigation of alleged fraud involving day care facilities in Minnesota. This followed reporting by Christopher Rufo and Ryan Thorpe at the Manhattan Institute that alleges similar fraud in that state.
Now the year is closing amid an exchange between longtime journalist and media analyst Margaret Sullivan and Musk over Weiss’s decision to pull a “60 Minutes” story shortly before it was to be aired, a decision Sullivan sharply criticized.
Sullivan wrote on social media, “Journalism is supposed to ‘afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted,’ but Bari Weiss seems to have it backwards.”
“No, Marge, you’re supposed to tell the truth,” Musk tweeted derisively, to which Sullivan later responded, “The thing is, Musk and I are in total agreement on that. Journalism’s first responsibility is to the truth and to the facts. No argument there.”
So, a few things to watch as 2026 unfolds: Can media trust rise? Or, perhaps, will distrust go even lower than the historic low to which it fell in 2025? And will Bari Weiss still be at CBS this time next year?
Recommended reading
The top 10 opinion and perspective pieces of 2025 include an essay on his church closing by Ryan Burge, a Deseret News editorial on the Charlie Kirk shooting, and a reflection on the passing of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints President Russell M. Nelson by Sarah Jane Weaver.
The Deseret News’ top opinion and perspective stories of 2025
The top religion stories of 2025 included the Catholic Church’s selection of a new pope after the death of Pope Francis, Erika Kirk forgiving the man who fatally shot her husband, the announcement of Dallin H. Oaks as the new president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the shootings at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach and at a Latter-day Saint meetinghouse in Michigan.
New pope, religious violence and religious liberty wins: 2025 in faith and religion stories
Jay Evensen looked at newspaper articles published on New Year’s Eve a century ago, and they remind us that “history is best viewed from a distance.”
What people a century ago can teach us about New Year’s
End notes
Conservatives shattered by the loss of Charlie Kirk have also seen the silencing (temporarily, let’s hope) of two other beloved personalities on the right in the past year: Dennis Prager, still recovering from the effects of a devastating fall a little more than a year ago, and Jordan Peterson, whose family has said is seriously ill from complications from mold exposure.
Now Victor Davis Hanson, the respected historian, author and Hoover Institution scholar who appears frequently on conservative shows and podcasts, is at least temporarily out of commission for medical reasons.
Speaking on his podcast, Hanson did not give specifics about what is wrong, but said he would have major surgery Tuesday at Stanford.
“I’m having a major operation, and I’ve been presented with a serious problem, but I’m going to do all I can to solve it. And that’s all I can do and trust in the power of prayer and faith — and in a wonderful surgeon,” Hanson said.
There was an immediate outpouring of love and concern by a Who’s Who of conservative personalities on social media.
Whatever is wrong, Hanson has been battling it for much of this year. He spoke on his podcast of being on this journey for nine months, adding, “The problem I had for a nonsmoker and nondrinker was a rare type and very hard to diagnose, so it’s no one’s fault other than my own, perhaps for not realizing why I was not getting well.”
Then there was also the terrible news about former Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse’s cancer last week.
OK, so maybe Gavin Newsom and the LA Times were right. It has been a no-good, terrible, horrible, very bad year. Let’s pray in a better one, for Hanson, for Sasse, for Peterson, for Prager, and for all of us.