Let’s be honest: 2025 sucked.

Of course, there were some highlights, including “KPop Demon Hunters,” Taylor Swift announcing her engagement to Travis Kelce (which will hopefully mean the national annoyance that is the Kelce brand will finally go away) and — of course — President Donald Trump bombing the Iranian nuclear program into oblivion.

But, all in all, 2025 was a terrible year.

Not because of the usual fraud, corruption and run-of-the-mill stories, such as Somali scams, political scandals or even street crime. No, it was a terrible year not just because of what happened, but what happened in response.

It was a year of loss, with entertainment and sporting greats — including Robert Redford, Diane Keaton, Val Kilmer, Hulk Hogan, George Foreman and Gene Hackman passing away. These losses were compounded by the tragic murder of Rob Reiner (and his wife Michele) in their home, and — of course — the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Utah, all while violence continued to spread across the nation. The brutal killing of Iryna Zarutska on Charlotte public transit spread like wildfire, and Jews faced a daily reality of vicious (and often deadly) violence in cities across the country.

But it’s not even these horrific acts of violence that made 2025 so memorably awful. No, it’s our societal response to such violence, of which there is no starker example than Charlie Kirk.

When Charlie Kirk was assassinated on a college campus in September for the crime of having opinions that offended his pathetic murderer, there was an outpouring of mournful condemnation that developed into support for his mission. But among this good there was an avalanche of bad, as many of his ideological enemies celebrated the murder of a husband and father, and other cynical parasites churned out conspiratorial garbage under the false banner of “just asking questions” to use this tragedy to line their pockets.

And while we like to believe that this horrific response to Charlie Kirk’s murder is indicative of a violent fringe in society or — perhaps — only one side of the aisle, it’s a problem that is far more widespread. After all, in the wake of Rob Reiner’s murder, Donald Trump took to Truth Social to blame Reiner’s death on his apparent “massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

I removed some capitalization to make this appalling response, somehow, slightly less offensive.

Here’s the problem: Trump’s response is all too common elsewhere. After all, we live in a country where Jews are assaulted or killed and people will blame Zionism. We live in a country where health care CEOs are gunned down in the street and people blame insurance companies. We live in a country where mentally ill career criminals are released from prison time and again to rape and murder, and people blame the racism that supposedly created such a monster.

Too often, we blame, or ignore, or blame and ignore.

Violence is becoming a weapon — whether against conservative commentators, political figures or random or not-so-random civilians — yet again.

As we enter a new year, we cannot allow ourselves to continue to slide into a feeling of partisan indifference, detachment, or disregard. We must condemn every act of violence with the same relentlessness, lest we lose ourselves.

In 2026, let’s do better.

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