The Best and Worst of 2025

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With 2026 right around the corner, it's that time of year to reflect on the highs and lows of this voyage around the sun.

First, let's consider the three best developments of 2025 from a policy perspective.

The passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB), which President Trump signed into law on Independence Day, earns the top spot in my mind because it will pay big dividends to hard-working Americans who got the short end of the stick under the Biden administration.

In 2025, the cost-of-living crisis was the main issue. To put more money in people's pockets, the OBBB extended and enhanced the middle-class tax cuts of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and slashed federal taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security.

As Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says, hard-working Americans will receive "very large refunds" when they file their taxes early next year.

Don't buy the media lies about the tax cuts going to the rich; lower- and middle-class Americans will benefit big time from the OBBB's tax cuts.

In second place comes the end of climate alarmism and the resurgence of commonsense energy policy focused on affordable, reliable, clean energy.

Thanks to Bill Gates' blog post, blackouts in Europe, exorbitant prices at the pump, skyrocketing electricity prices, the growing power demand of datacenters and Artificial Intelligence (AI), coupled with the utter failure of so-called green energy to maintain a reliable electric grid, and years of catastrophic predictions that have not come true, 2025 should go down as the year climate alarmism officially jumped the shark.

While the tax provisions received most of the media attention, the OBBB will also unleash "American energy dominance." According to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, "The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is a historic piece of legislation that will restore energy independence and make life more affordable for American families by reversing disastrous Biden-era policies that constricted domestic energy production."

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We've already seen a sneak preview of the Trump administration's "energy dominance agenda" with the lowest prices at the pump in years. In 2026, this trend should continue.

Remember when Biden administration officials gaslit the American people for four years, claiming that the border was secure, as they allowed millions of people to enter the country?

In third place is the resecuring of America's borders. Unlike his predecessor, President Trump has fulfilled his constitutional duty to properly protect America's borders while enforcing immigration laws passed by Congress. By doing so, illegal immigration has nearly ceased, and violent, dangerous illegal aliens have been deported.

Although the immigration crackdown has been portrayed as malevolent by the media, it is important to remember that the tens of millions who entered illegally under Biden defied U.S. law and became burdens on governments that have spent billions on their housing, food, healthcare, education, etc. Their arrival also put huge pressure on the housing market because housing is inelastic and drove wages down.

On the other end of the spectrum, there were certainly many disturbing developments in the world of policy and politics, led by the rise of socialism.

Did you ever believe that a socialist would become elected mayor of America's crown jewel city? I sure did not. Then again, I also didn't foresee most young Americans embracing socialism.

However, upon further reflection, this makes some sense. The American dream is on life support in places like New York City and Seattle. Government-run public schools have indoctrinated a generation of young people that collectivism is fair and moral, whereas capitalism is unjust and evil. And higher education institutions have preached Marxist ideology for decades.

Make no mistake, socialism is on the rise in the United States.

Another concerning ideology sweeping the nation, again mostly among young people, is the idolatry of AI.

Since young people have grown up in the internet/social media age, I fear they fail to consider that overreliance on technology, particularly a technology that can supersede the human brain, could portend the end of humanity, literally. Such is why I find it both remarkable and terrifying that more than four-in-10 young likely voters would "give an advanced AI system authority to control public policymaking decisions."

Call me a Luddite, but I remain somewhat skeptical about AI, and I fear that the blind, thoughtless acceptance of it could have very negative consequences.

Lastly, the growth of globalism ought to remain on Americans' list of concerns as we turn the page to a new year. Although the World Economic Forum's Great Reset has become the subject of ridicule, it would be unwise to dismiss the globalist threat in 2026 and beyond.

After the Great Reset flopped, Euro-elites decided to leverage the economic might of the European Union to enforce their ESG, social justice agenda upon the world. I suggest you learn about the EU's Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and the EU AI Act. Both laws embrace what scholars call the "Brussels Effect," the EU's attempt to become the de facto global regulator.

As 2025 fades into memory and we begin a new journey around the star at the center of our solar system, I suspect that the developments above will stay at the forefront.

In 2026, affordability will remain the buzzword. For me, the biggest questions for the year to come are how democratic socialists address the cost-of-living crisis in far-left cities and how much hard-working Americans benefit from the Trump administration's economic and energy agenda.

Chris Tago ([email protected]) is editorial director at The Heartland Institute.

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