Charlie Sykes (2:06)

I'm Charlie Sykes. Welcome to to the Contrary podcast. We're trying to wrap up an absolutely insane year. We've been taking some days off for the holidays. I hope that you have as well. But we're also doing a series of year in review shows. We're going to be Talking to Tom Nichols. We're going to be talking to Susan Glass. Matt. Matt Lewis. You'll be able to find all of our year in review stuff on our newsletter or the website if you don't subscribe yet. To the contrary, you really ought to consider it because there's a lot of material there. You know, I don't promise you a safe space, just straight, sober, smart, usually kind of snarky commentary to get us through this particular period, to kind of remind people that, you know, we're not alone in what's going on here. So this week we are going to be doing a series on of these year in review shows and each one, I think is going to have a different take because there is just so much that has happened in this last year, this year of shock and awe, where we were warned about authoritarianism, but we got something quite a bit worse. You know, an oligarchy and an imperial presidency and the attack on the rule of law like we have never seen before, not to mention the entire shitification of the White House. So let's get ready to dive in once again. Oh, and joining me for this episode of 2025, what the hell just happened to us is my good friend Matt Lewis. Matt, how are you doing?

Matt Lewis (3:39)

Hey, Charlie. Doing well.

Charlie Sykes (3:41)

All right. So we have a lot of ground to cover. You know, I was thinking about what the biggest surprises of the year were. And, you know, I think you and I talked about this the other day and I'm always reluctant to say that because nothing should have surprised us since we were warned about absolutely everything. Now I was surprised by all the capitulations, all of the obeying in advance. I was, you know, surprised by what happened with the corporate media, you know, the, the willingness of the oligarchy to bend the knee, the, the willingness of universities to go along with that. So, you know, I mean, I was somewhat surprised, but I, I was thinking that one of the big surprises of the year, and maybe it shouldn't have been, has been the resurgence of antisemitism on the right and the fact that with the death of Charlie Kirk, and I think you've mentioned this as well, it feels like the door has been opened for some of the worst elements of the right. And it's once again a test of the immune system of the right, the immune system which has broken down over the last couple of years. So I remember that moment when someone told me, you know, one of the rising stars on the right, seriously, is Nick Fuentes. Nick Fuentes, who's a neo Nazi. So, you know, what are your thoughts on that? Because, I mean, we've warned about it. It's always been out there. It's been a recessive gene. But that's one of the themes in terms of what's happening to the conservative movement at the end of 2025, isn't it?

Matt Lewis (5:10)

Absolutely. Look, we've seen. We'll go broad here, right? So once upon a time, there was a pretty clear anti Semitic, radical, weird fringe America, first part of the right. I think after World War II, that largely receded. It never really went away, but it certainly wasn't mainstream. I worked at a conservative organization in the late 90s and early 2000s, and I can tell you the vast majority of my colleagues were young, pretty normal, George W. Bush acolyte types, compassionate conservatives. There were one or two kind of weird fringe folks out there, were basically considered to be like the nerds. They were not cool. The girls that we were working with were not into them. And I think that is really flipped if you went to any conservative organization today, we saw what happened at the Heritage foundation and the reports that a lot of the young staffers there are actually like Nick Fuentes. And so in the last 25 years, things have dramatically shifted. And I think even in recent years, it has accelerated. Even this past year, Charlie, now the guy who shot and killed Charlie Kirk probably did not imagine that in so doing he would make the right more radical. But while Charlie Kirk was by no means perfect and espoused things that I don't like and don't agree with, he was, believe it or not, a moderating force in the influencer world.

Charlie Sykes (6:55)

Right? He tried to push back.

Matt Lewis (6:57)

And his absence now, and I think it's an unintended consequence of his murder, but his absence has actually radicalized the right and made the anti Semitic fringe crowd more powerful, increasingly powerful as this year draws to an end.

Charlie Sykes (7:14)

No, I agree with you and I hesitate to make predictions about all of this, by the way. You know what I was thinking about the other day? That if you and I were sitting down and at the end of 2015, trying to predict what would happen, we would have no idea what the next decade would be like. Right? We would have just not the slightest idea of what was about to happen to American politics, American government, the conservative movement. So, you know, humility is, is in order all of all the time. But what is interesting is that at the end of 2025, you do see these stirrings, division on, on the right, whether, you know, it's Ben Shapiro versus You know, the Fuentes crowd or whether it is the absolute implosion of the Heritage Foundation. On the other hand, J.D. vance has clearly chosen a side. J.D. vance has sided with basically the people who say, let's not call out the anti Semites, let's not call out the neo Nazis. And if J.D. vance is the future of the Republican Party, and I'm not saying that he is, I was on a TV show where some pundit was saying that he is the prohibitive favorite in 2028. To which I'm saying, are you fucking kidding me? I mean, seriously, you can't predict anything that far in advance. But if in fact the future is J.D. vance, then I think we're going to have that door wider. Okay, so let's look back. Give me your sense of the trajectory of 2025. And I think that this is one of those years, and I've mentioned this on the other shows where instead of like picking specific stories, there are these broad themes, you know, the broad things about what's happened, you know, to the rule of law, to ethics, you know, public health, the economy. But give me your sense of the trajectory of the year, because it certainly began with a lot of shock and awe, didn't it?

Matt Lewis (9:00)

That's right. Yeah. I'm working on a column right now for the LA Times where I'm trying to engage in the same thought process, the same kind of intellectual exercise, because Trump throws a million things at us. And so it's, I think, helpful to actually try to look at trends that are clearly developing. And so I have five of them in my piece that I'm currently working on. But the big one, I think to me the big one is kind of the rise and fall of Donald Trump. I mean, he started off this year, Charlie, as you have already kind of alluded to, incredibly strong. It was sort of like a football team that comes out, they've scripted their opening drive and he was just marching down the field, rolling over opposition and just destroying institutions and co opting and just mowing over basically everybody. And it was to the point where, you know, come like February, my attitude was basically like, by the time we get to the midterms, he will have basically absorbed so much of the media and academia and our institutions that maybe there will be an election, but it's kind of gonna be a pro forma type thing, like a soft coup. And so I was surprised a at Trump's very fast start. Obviously this, you know, Project 2025 that he pretended not to know about in 2024 was a thing and he was running their playbook verbatim with all these executive orders. And so a, I was surprised how quickly he got off and how strong he looked. But then I became surprised at how quickly Charlie et al fell apart and that so really two surprises. I, I'm sure there have been times George W. Bush, maybe you don't even have to go back that far. George H.W. bush. Right. But to see somebody start off the year so strong and finish it so much weaker, it is a stark contrast.

Charlie Sykes (11:02)

You know, he clearly has, you know, I do think he, you know, is beginning if he's not a lame duck, you're getting that whiff of lame duckism. But I'm not sure that he's lost all of his power. I mean, he still is the President. He still is flexing the muscles. He still can tear down parts of the White House. He can still name a new class of battleships after himself. I mean, he's just getting started on the naming himself. But there's clearly, I don't know whether you'd say that the Trump vibe is gone, but you are seeing the cracks. And I think that they had a plan. And I think your analogy of the team that comes out and all the plays are pre scripted, that's the way it felt. And it felt almost unstoppable. And so many institutions decided it can't resist him. And then of course, the poll numbers started falling. You had the midterm elections, you start having the cracks in the Republican coalition. And there is kind of a sense that he's just thrown spaghetti up against the wall. You know, spaghetti and ketchup up against the wall, talking about 50 year mortgages and things like that. But I think it's always a mistake to underestimate how much power the President still has. He still has three years in office. And even if he loses in the midterms, what he's shown is that he is prepared to use that power in the crudest, most reckless, most naked manner. Pardons, retaliation, prosecutions, the abuse of the military. We haven't necessarily hit bottom yet.

Matt Lewis (12:32)

I think it's really important that we do two things simultaneously. Number one, I think it's always wise to somewhat overestimate your opponent. You certainly don't want to take your adversary too lightly. And so I think it would be a complete mistake that to like, oh, Trump's a joke, he's over, you know, stick a fork in him, he's done. I think that attitude would be unwise because as you mentioned, he's still the President, he's still very powerful. On the other hand, I think this past year the bigger problem among the so called resistance, certainly Democrats, but also like whether you're never Trump conservative or whatever, if you're an anti Trump person. The bigger problem I think was sort of an inferiority complex in the sense that Trump was omnipotent and unstoppable. And I think that there was a lot of fear. I think that that becomes almost a self fulfilling prophecy. If you think he's unstoppable. He is. And so to me, the turn that we've made, and it started probably around, well, I think it started with the tariffs actually. But it really to me became obvious this summer that something was changing. I think that is actually, I think there's a greater risk right now of treating Trump as being unbeatable than there is of taking him too lightly.

Charlie Sykes (13:54)

No, I think that's true. You know, and the Democrats seem to have finally gotten their feet, you know, somewhat both legislatively and politically. I'm worried that they will overplay their hand. You know, there's always that danger of, I mean, and again, this is not a prediction show, but I was just reading an analysis, someone saying that, you know, it seems likely that the Democrats are going to win in the midterm elections, at least one house of Congress. And then the danger becomes, do they misread that? Do they, do they just simply count on the Republicans becoming so deplorable and so ineffective? And that may be enough. But, but I am reading these stories now about the, the, the far left, the progressives who are feeling so emboldened that they're primary, some of their better guys. I mean, you know, Dan Goldman is a, you know, liberal Democratic congressman from New York, one of the rising stars of the party. You know who Dan Goldman is. I mean, he's one of the really, really smart guys, used to be on some of these investigative committees. They're actually now the progressives with the support of the New mayor of New York are primarying him. So I do wonder about whether or not Democrats are going to get a little cocky about this. But let's go back to the year because, you know, some of the shocks I think, you know, came from the fact that we really did realize that there was no one who was going to stand up to him. And I think, you know, you go back to the very, very first day of Trump's presidency where he pardoned all of the January 6th rioters. And you know, that was not surprising because that he was gonna pardon them. Right. But that he pardoned them all, every one of them, including the ones who had tased and beat the cops. That, I think was really an indication of how radical this administration would be and how anyone thought that this would be vaguely like Trump 1.0 was completely wrong, that this was going to be something completely different. That it was. They had nothing, that he was immune. He had unlimited pardon power. In terms of government ethics, I mean, 20, 25, you know, could go down in history as the. You. You circle and go, this is when the entire concept of government ethics was completely thrown away. We have corruption on a global industrial scale, and nothing is being done about it. And the President, United States is sitting there transactionally coining money for himself, and the rest of the country is going, is anybody going to do anything about this? And the answer is no.

Matt Lewis (16:25)

And they're not. And one of the things I think we learned this year is they should have learned it sooner. It's that I don't think corruption. So the corruption issue can work, but it doesn't work when you frame it as we have to defend liberal democracy. I think it works in the context of the affordability crisis. When you say to the American public, you don't have money. You can't afford to buy the things you used to afford to buy at the grocery store. Now look at what Trump is doing. Look at the crypto scams he's running and how he's enriching himself. Look at how his rich donors are getting pardoned. So I think one of the real things, and we should have learned it before, but I think by now it's finally hit home, is that the way to win elections is not to talk about things that are, like, esoteric or moral. It's to frame them in a way that's very much got to do with the kitchen table. Doesn't mean you don't talk about them, doesn't mean they're not important, vitally important issues, but it means the way you communicate them has to be framed in a way that resonates.

Charlie Sykes (17:39)

You may have to make it relevant.

Matt Lewis (17:41)

Exactly. That would be the word I was looking for, Charlie.

Charlie Sykes (17:44)

Okay, So I agree 80% with that. But I also think that one of the reasons why Trump is losing support and clearly, obviously on the economy, But I also think that he's offending American sense of decency and fairness with some of his policies and that there are Americans who are watching the videos of grandmas being pulled from their cars and kids being separated from their parents. These stories out of the Salvadoran Gulag, that offends something fundamental in Americans. And I think Americans do have to ask themselves as is this we are as a people, is this what the American way is? And look, you and I both know there's a lot of the MAGA folks that look at this and go, yeah, absolutely. They look at the blowing up of the boats and things like that as kind of like almost MAGA porn. And it's like, this is what I voted for. I'm not sure that other people are, but I think this is part of this trajectory you were talking about. They start off so unstoppable. And as we come to the end of the year, they, especially Donald Trump seems more disconnected, more isolated, more tone deaf than I've ever seen him in his political career. The Affordability act is one of them. There were a couple other turning points of the year, I think, for Donald Trump that we would not necessarily have seen coming. The Epstein files, one of the real surprise switches of the year. We're going to release this. We're going to release this. We're going to release this. Oh, no, no, Nothing to see there. That didn't work. And that's the one story that didn't go away. That's number one. I also think people reacted. I'm interested to hear your reaction when he tore down the east Wing of the White House. That felt like one of those moments when people thought, what the hell's going on here? Were there any other turning points that sort of stand out for you, that kind of cracked that illusion of invincibility or support?

Matt Lewis (19:39)

I don't know. But I will say on the two that you just mentioned, I think those are very important. Because, look, Donald Trump, again, does so many crazy things, things that really any one of them, what he said about John McCain should have been a disqualifier 10 years ago, and somehow it wasn't. He just became more popular. Right. And so once you become inured to it and you're like, well, he said this crazy thing and he still got elected. He said this crazy thing and he still won the nomination. Maybe nothing matters. And you start to assume again that he is, like, omnipotent and cannot be touched, and then you start to see, like, actually there are weird things that he says, and for whatever reason, there is a backlash. And I think in the case of the Epstein files, I was surprised that it was such a big deal and that his base, the Republican, in many cases the conspiracy fringe of the right wing, even revolted. Against Trump to a certain degree over this. They didn't just go along with him. Donald Trump had said, I could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters. Well, that's probably true, but apparently it's not true when it comes to supporting Israel. Here's here would be another one supporting Israel and bombing Iran. I think there was a certain amount of that that began some of the backlash this past summer. Not releasing maga.

Charlie Sykes (21:03)

Yeah.

Matt Lewis (21:04)

Not releasing the Epstein files. And then the East Wing thing, Charlie, you just mentioned that. I'm not sure why that resonated. And we can hypothesize like, it's a visual, it's an image. You can see it. The White House, even though the East Wing wasn't always part of the White House, it's associated as being this iconic thing that we all own. It's the People's House. But I think we could have made those same arguments about other things that no one cared about. So I don't quite understand why these things resonated, but I think you are right. They were turning points this year.

Charlie Sykes (21:42)

No, no. And again, there's a couple of other things, as you and I both know. I mean, Donald Trump says the most vile, insulting things on a regular basis. Right. He's made fun of disabled people. He's insulted women. And yet another one of those moments that seem to have broken through was when he was mocking the murder of Rob Reiner and his, and his wife again near the end of the year here. And I think that cut through to the, the, the, the popular culture, because I don't know, because people like Rob Reiner's movies, they, you know, not everybody is political. Not everybody sees everything through it. And I, and I'm not sure what, whether that's sort of a drip, drip, drip, cumulative effect or whether it's one of those, holy shit, you know, what is wrong with this guy? And I do think that that's the other thing. You know, it's, you know, after having endured four years of sleepy Joe Biden, which he emphasizes, to watch sleepy Donald Trump, it is one of the paradoxes of the year, that he's supposed to be this Superman, this imperial president, the king, and all of this, and yet he's falling asleep. There's something going on with him. I mean, there's. Clearly the guy is losing a couple of steps and it's not. That is not going to get better over the next three years. I'm not sure that's reassuring. Maybe it's in fact, more dangerous. But I Don't think you can tell the story of 2025 without going back to your point. You start strong and you kind of end like, the lame ducky thing seems to have started a little bit quicker than I would have expected in 2025.

Matt Lewis (23:12)

Yeah, look, I mean, I think Donald Trump clearly aged this year, and part of it is we're no longer comparing him to Biden. Right. So in 2024, in general, I mean, I know Kamala Harris ultimately became the nominee for the Democrats, but basically, in people's minds, you could contrast Donald Trump with Joe Biden, and it wasn't a favorable contrast for Biden. Biden seemed more doddering, he seemed slow, whereas Trump's aged. But he's still got the energy. It's like a weird, crazed, manic energy. And so I think that favored. The contrast, favored Trump. Well, Biden is no longer part of the picture, and Trump is nothing but getting older. And I think it's very clear that he is losing his step, that he is not the man he used to be. And I think it's manifesting in multiple ways. You mentioned falling asleep, but I think also he's having fewer and fewer of these rallies. Now, he's had a couple of events recently, but in general, if you look at 2025, he has not been out there amongst the people where I think to great effect, he would focus group ideas and workshop ideas and actually feed off the crowd's energy, but also test things with them. And so absent that opportunity, he's been surrounded by basically billionaires and then weird ideologues. And so I think that the fact that he is so out of touch with average Americans right now is part and parcel of that being in a bubble.

Charlie Sykes (24:46)

Yeah. And you know, that address to the nation in the last couple of weeks of the year was a complete fiasco, was an indication of all that. There were a couple of other. I mean, going back to your point of the people in the second half of the year realized that they could stand up against him. You know, there are a couple of. And I'm not trying to be irrationally exuberant here, but I mean, a couple of the developments that I think are significant, and you know that I'm. I keep coming back to this. The election of the American Pope continues to be one of the most significant events of the year. And I think that it's an undercovered story because this Pope is not only very outspoken about Donald Trump, but he is putting in place bishops and cardinals and telling them, I really want you to Engage on all of these issues and I think you're going to start to see more of that.

Blue Apron or Oregon Lottery Announcer (25:33)

Why does every recipe I try need 18 ingredients, including a jar of something paste I'll never use again but will sit in my fridge for nine months? I just want dinner in the oven fast. That's why I love Blue Apron's new One Pan, assemble and Bake meals. They send you fresh ingredients that are already chopped. All you do is put it all together and bake. That's it. No chopping, no weird leftovers. Just delicious, easy to make meals. Get 20% off your first two orders with code APRON20. Terms and conditions apply. Visit blueapron.com terms for more.

Christy (26:04)

Hi, this is Christy from Back to the Bar. You've probably heard about GLP1 weight loss medications and the side effects that can come with jumping in too fast. That's why I love NOOM makes getting started easy. Their microdose GLP1 program begins with a smaller dose and gradually scales up based on how your body reacts. The Noom GLP1 microdose program starts at $99 and it's delivered to your door in seven days. Start your microdose GLP1 journey today at noom.com that's n o o m.com Noom micro changes big results.

Noom Disclaimer Voice (26:37)

Average weight loss eight pounds in first month. Meds and personalization based on clinical need and not available to all individuals. Medications are not reviewed by FDA for safety, efficacy or quality. Pricing based on first month only.

Charlie Sykes (26:53)

As you know, because you and I talk all the time, I thought one of the turning points of the year was when the, the fc, you know, they were flexing the muscles with the FCC and you know, look, Donald Trump's had tremendous success in bringing ABC to its knees, to bringing cnn, you know, threatening cnn, you know, threatening cbs. We've seen what's happened here. And then he got Disney to fire or look like they were going to fire Jimmy Kimmel. In the wake of that, you know, the, the post Charlie Kirk stuff, the audience essentially forced Disney to bring Kimmel back. And as I've said before, I am really struck by watching Jimmy Kimmel now that he's holding nothing back. If he was intimidated, he is not showing it. And I think it's kind of a symbol that, you know what, you know, you can get knocked down, but the key is if you stand back up and you go at it, you can actually be effective. And I think that's one of the things that's starting to happen at the end of 25. That was not happening at the beginning of 2025.

Matt Lewis (27:58)

I don't think you can underestimate or maybe it's overestimate the psychological aspect of this. Right. Yes. I really think this is a self fulfilling prophecy. If you think Trump is gonna get a third term and nobody could stop him, you will behave differently, you will be more obedient than if you believe he is a doddering old man who is trying to find his wandering off stage and even his own party is turning against him and he can't even keep a late night comedian off of tv. So the Jimmy Kimmel thing was very important from a psychological standpoint. I don't think it really matters that much, actually.

Charlie Sykes (28:38)

Right, just psychological, right? Exactly.

Matt Lewis (28:41)

It's the fact that he stood up and would not go quietly and that the executives felt either they had the confidence to defy Trump or they felt the heat coming from. From the other direction was stronger. But whatever the case, that gives everyone sort of a shot in the arm.

Charlie Sykes (29:02)

You know, I think.

Matt Lewis (29:04)

Was it Lombardi who said that winning is. Winning is contagious and so is losing these momentum? I mean, you watch any football game I hate to keep coming back to, people will think I'm obsessed with football. Actually, I'm not the biggest fan in the world, but I think it explains a whole lot. Momentum is a real force. You will see a team and they fumble the ball and then they make another mistake and then something will turn and they'll get the momentum back. And it is a powerful force. I don't know if it's spiritual or psychological or what, but it really matters. And the Jimmy Kimmel story was part of that story.

Charlie Sykes (29:41)

And I think that that was also the significance of the no Kings rallies. You know, did anything change? No, but it was that sense that, okay, we're not alone here, and there is an opposition. Okay, so these are the positive things. But think that it's really important that we look very, very clearly at all the damage that was done this year. And the damage was fundamental to government agencies, to the independence of the Justice Department. You know, which starts off with this massive attack on the federal workforce, the chaos of Doge, the Elon Musk drama, all of that. The slashes in foreign aid that I actually do believe has probably resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, the dismantling of much of the public health infrastructure, the embracing of anti vax conspiracy theories, just the wild imposition of these massive unilateral tariffs, the collapse of Congress as a co equal branch of government, the Abandonment of many of our allies. At the end of the year, we're still seeing him threatening Greenland, Panama, Canada, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, NATO, the abandonment of Ukraine, the rise of the mafia state. For my friends, everything. For my enemies, the law, the immigration crackdown, the number of lives that have been destroyed, the gulags. The thing about that CBS story that dominated the news last week is that this is one of the great shames of America. This is who America is right now. That this country is responsible for terror and torture of immigrants. You know, some of them illegal immigrants, some of them immigrants who have not actually broken the law. So one after another we see, you know, the extrajudicial killings, the troops on the streets of America, the possibility of the Insurrection Act. So let me ask you this, and I've been doing this for a very, very long time. I used to do this back on the radio. Looking back on this 10, 20 years from now, a lot of it's noise and a lot of it's really substance. What will have been the changes or the events that are going to have the longest term event? And I'll give you my short take. I think it's America's switching sides in the Cold War. I think it's our abandonment of being the shining city on the Hill, our embrace of our new buddies, Vladimir Putin and others. And I think that's going to have long term implications because the rest of the world is never going to regard the United States the same way. They're never going to trust us, I hope. And by the way, there's a worse scenario that we'll look back on this year as the year in which we created the conditions for global pandemics by destroying our health infrastructure. But what do you kind of all the things that have happened, what do you think will have the most momentous long term implications?

Matt Lewis (32:45)

I'll cop out and say I think you're right. But let me just say, Charlie, it's.

Charlie Sykes (32:49)

Not copying out, it's insightful. Yeah.

Matt Lewis (32:52)

It's so easy doing a show with you. Charlie was right. Let's make a T shirt that says that. No, look, I think the point you're making is this. Like if you elected Ronald Reagan to zombie Ronald Reagan tomorrow.

Charlie Sykes (33:06)

Yeah.

Matt Lewis (33:07)

And he took office on Monday. Let's, you know, whatever. Like, what could you do? Now there's certain things that Trump has done in the past year that could be reversed. They're executive orders. They could be reversed instantly.

Charlie Sykes (33:19)

Right, right.

Matt Lewis (33:21)

But there's a lot of things that have happened that are irreversible and so, for example, there may be already, by virtue of what we've done with funding vaccines, medical research, usaid, we may have cost ourselves a decade of research. There may be scientists, researchers who have left, who have gone on, moved on to do something else. There are things, and then to your point about the kind of global world order, the population, the Post World War II liberal order, if Ronald Reagan showed up tomorrow, Japan is like, well, we are rearming. I mean, we're not counting on your umbrella of protection or safety because we've seen what happens when we do that. We're not doing that again. This has been going on. To me, Part of the problem, Charlie, is, and I'll even count myself among this, like, this began a day. We're now a decade in to this change. And there was a point where, like, well, if Trump just has one term, maybe I'm back in, you know, I'm back in with Rubio or I'm back in with Nikki Haley, right? We're now a decade in. If you're another country and you're looking at America, you're like, we can't trust them, actually, and we would be silly to trust them. And so it doesn't matter so much which one of these things. We will look back in 20 years. It's that this has been a turning point. And I will say, you know, and I think this is also an obvious point, but, like, certain presidents get an era. Like, you know, I know we talk about the Jacksonian era. This is an era.

Charlie Sykes (35:22)

It is. I really, I don't want to say it, but it is, and there's no way around it. And so the era leaves you change in so many ways. The changes in the culture, the changes in our politics, the damage done to the institutions. I mean, how long will it take to fix the Department of Justice or the FBI? You know, how many years I think I've told this story? I mean, Judge Ludig says that he thinks it's going to take generations to fix the damage to the Department of Justice, for example. And going back to your, you know, America's place in the world, I think the best quote of the whole year, I think I'm gonna get this right, was from David Frum. And he says the rest of the world looked at the United States in 2016 when Donald Trump was elected, as, you know, and thought, what the hell's going on? And America said, hey, you know, we made a mistake. You know, we mix Quaaludes with tequila and we're never going to make that mistake again. You know, I mean, okay, so we did this one thing and we're back now and we're on the wagon. And we're never going to mix the quaaludes with tequila. 20, 24 rolls along, what happens? America mixes the Quaaludes with the tequila again and you know, the rest of the world's going, okay, once we can get it twice. You people have a problem and we're going to have to.

Matt Lewis (36:45)

This is who you are.

Charlie Sykes (36:46)

This is who you are. Exactly.

Matt Lewis (36:48)

And think about this too. If you just became president today and you want to fix the culture and make it a healthy, non corrupt culture, what do you do? Okay, so for example, do you punish?

Charlie Sykes (37:03)

What do you do?

Matt Lewis (37:04)

You can't punish Trump because he's apparently immune. He can do anything according to the Supreme Court. And, but, and he's probably gonna pardon everyone, but count on it. Would you, if you're, let's say you're a Democrat and you just got elected, you're like, affordability is the reason I got elected. My number one priority. I have to talk about affordability. Not only do I have to fix the affordability crisis, it has to be perceived that I'm laser focused on affordability now. Let's tear down the east wing. Let's punish, let's arrest Pam Bondi. Cause we wanna send a message to the. How do you even try to change the incentive structure?

Charlie Sykes (37:46)

This is gonna be so hard. This is so hard. This is such an interesting question and we're sort of getting ahead of ourselves. But I do wonder about all of this because a lot of this stuff does need to be fixed. One of the things we learned in 2025 was what a failure the last administration was in protecting us against all of this. And I talked about this with Susan Glasser. You know, the prime directive of the interregnum, the Biden years was, you know, could you fireproof American democracy and the rule of law? Can you keep Donald Trump from returning to power? No, we did not do that. So will one of the lessons be that, okay, next time we have to be really, really aggressive and holding everybody accountable? I don't know what that's going to look like. How will people react on day one when some, you know, people show up and chisel Donald Trump's name off of the Kennedy Memorial, you know, arts Arts Center? And so again, I, but I felt this way throughout this particular era that we're talking about. It's hard to see over the next hill, right, because you have to like how do I get there? You know what I'm saying? It's like trying to imagine what 2029 is going to be. It's like, well, get back to me when we've seen how much damage has been done and what is left because the damage is very, very real and we can't downplay that. It's also what Donald Trump exposed about America, that we were so much less committed to these principles than we thought.

Christy (39:21)

Hi, this is Christy from Back to the Bar. You've probably heard about GLP1 weight loss medications and, and the side effects that can come with jumping in too fast. That's why I love Noom. Makes getting started easy. Their microdose GLP1 program begins with a smaller dose and gradually scales up based on how your body reacts. The Noom GLP1 microdose program starts at $99 and it's delivered to your door in seven days. Start your microdose GLP1 journey today at noom.com that's n o o m.com Noom micro changes big results.

Noom Disclaimer Voice (39:55)

Average weight loss eight pounds in first month. Meds and personalization based on clinical need and not available to all individuals. Medications are not reviewed by FDA for safety, efficacy or quality. Pricing based on first month only.

Andrew Yang (40:08)

Hi, I'm Andrew Yang. You may remember me as being the guy who wanted to get money into the hands of millions of Americans. Well, I'm still at it and I'm now the founder of Noble Mobile, the first carrier that pays you to use your phone less. With Noble, you get unlimited Talk, text and 5G data on the T mobile network. And you can earn up to $20 cash back a month for getting off your phone. Try it for just $10 a month at noblemobile.com yang. That's noblemobile.com and use my code yang10 to get paid to use your phone less.

Charlie Sykes (40:41)

But when I was talking with Susan Glasser, I said, I feel that a lot of the biggest stories of 2025 really happened in 2024. I mean, not just the election of Donald Trump, but the Supreme Court decision that gave him pretty sweeping immunity and then all of the collapses that occurred even before he came into office. I mean, do you remember that moment when you picked up the newspaper, your phone, and you saw that ABC was paying him money and that the law firms were cutting deals with him? And you're thinking, wait, everyone is surrendering in advance? Because I think there had been a complacency thinking, well, he may try that stuff, but he'd never get away with it because X, Y and Z. And then suddenly you realize Congress is a potted plant, the courts are going to give him a green light, and all of the institutions of civil society are in a fetal crouch.

Matt Lewis (41:32)

Yes. I'm telling you, there were a couple months at the beginning of the year where it looked very, very scary. And I don't think we should be complacent. But I think we finished the year in a much better place than we started with his approval ratings. And I think, again, I don't want to beat a dead horse and sound like a broken record, but I do think the economy is really the key. Donald Trump's approval rating has actually rebounded a little bit here at the end of the year from being at maybe a really low point around Thanksgiving. But his approval on the economy, which was considered his strength, I think the reason he got reelected in 2024 is very low. And even Republicans are worried about inflation. I don't see it getting better. I think things are the economy is going to get worse partly because Trump's, you know, the first time in 2017, Trump inherits, I think, economy, an economy that's kind of roaring back and he excites everyone, you know, manifests using his rhetoric. And that worked up until Covid, which everyone forgets. Oh, by the way, he was president during COVID No one, for whatever reason we've, we've memory hold.

Charlie Sykes (42:50)

That part is weird.

Matt Lewis (42:51)

This time he inherited a struggling economy, was certainly in terms of the affordability crisis and then AI job displacement looming. And he has only exacerbated the problem with his policies, including tariffs. So I don't see it getting better. And if you're rooting against Trump, that would actually be a good thing, I think.

Charlie Sykes (43:11)

Well, I think the key thing on the economy is his incredible disconnect. And you made this point earlier that affordability is also tied into the fact that the system is rigged for the millionaires and the billionaires. And this is not a Bernie Sanders thing anymore. We're talking about Elon Musk being the first trillionaire in the world at a time when people who are going to the grocery store and realize, I can't afford beef anymore, wonder whether we're going to look back on 2025 and think, well, this was the rise of a real populist movement, a real sort of, and maybe it'll take a progressive form where people where the inequalities of wealth become so extreme that people have been radicalized on some of that. You made a quick reference. It is certainly possible that we have missed the biggest development of 2025 Time Magazines person of the year. By the way, when did Time magazine become so shitty? I don't know anyway, but was, was. You saw that picture of all of the AI moguls and everything, the rise of AI and the way it's, it's driving the economy, the way it's going to drive everything. It's one of those things that will be as transformative as any technology in human history. Now I say that and it sounds like that's complete hype, but you know, when you think about how the printing press changed things, the industrial revolution, the cotton gin, the automobile, the iPhone, all of those things had tremendous impacts on society. AI I think is going to be even more dramatic. And I don't know that anyone fully understands all the political, social, cultural, sexual, economic impacts, employment impacts of AI and yet this was the year where it felt like it just exploded.

Matt Lewis (44:59)

I completely agree. I mean, think about just the political ramifications that we've experienced since the iPhone and social media. I mean the whole Donald Trump phenomenon probably doesn't happen. It's not the only force, but it's certainly one of the driving forces. And so I think that it's going to be a. The word game changer. The term game changer is so lame. But yes, exactly that. And the displacement is really part of the problem is that there are people who really thought that they were immune from being displaced. Right. Like I'm not a coal miner, I'm not in the steel industry or something. So you would think that if you, if you're, we were told if you go to college, you get a degree and you're involved in computer programming, coding, that then you're really secure. Well, actually no, you're not. Let's say that you became a paralegal. You're still going to have the top notch lawyer and lawyers will write laws too. But the 10 paralegals they had researching, we don't need 10 anymore, now you've got one or two. And so I think it's going to, not only the displacement is going to be crazy, we're going to have people driving tractor trailers. It's like the number one job in a lot of states. There's going to be some of them replaced with self driving vehicles and all of that. But you're also gonna have people who thought they were immune from this. They went to college, they worked hard, they thought they played by the rules, they were living the American dream. And now that is being Ripped out from under them. It seems to me that this is likely to come to a head in the next three years, and Donald Trump will still presumably be president in two or three years, and so he's gonna have to deal with this. But it's not just him. Whoever the next leader is had better have a plan for this, or else it's not gonna go well.

Charlie Sykes (46:54)

I don't know that there will be a plan for it. I mean, what would the plan be for what the iPhone and the Internet was going to do to the human mind, to education, to everything?

Matt Lewis (47:04)

As Mike Tyson said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. I have some. Some ideas they may not hold up under reality.

Charlie Sykes (47:14)

Look, I am not an expert in all of this, and I feel like somebody's sort of dipping his toe in trying to figure out how does it work, how smart is it, how much faster is it growing. But it does occur to me that it's not just economic. One of the great social crises of our time is loneliness, is the fact that people don't have anyone to communicate with. I mean, the breakdown of so many of the social networks that's happened in the last 10, 20 years, Covid was certainly part of it. But this isolation that people, you know, become, you know, prisoners of their own screen and all of the implications that has for families, for everything. And AI can create an entire artificial social world for people. And I try to imagine, you know, lonely men who suddenly have a really attractive girlfriend that they can talk to who really understands them and gets them, you know, and. And again, we don't even know all the ways in which this is going to change the relations between men and women. And, you know, and so, yeah, it.

Matt Lewis (48:23)

Used to be they were the only game in town. You couldn't, you know, it's like. Like it's that or a Playboy magazine. And no, you're right. And I mean, I think this plays into the whole trend of the incels and of very much men having this complex about how we're not getting the respect we used to have. And we used to be able to make $15 an hour down at the factory. And now I'm not, you know, I'm not treated with the respect and dignity at home that I deserve. And so, you know, you're totally right. Here's the other thing, though, too. That's a huge point you just made. And I think it's got major societal ramifications and repercussions that we can't even begin to. But the other Thing is, aside from friendships and marriage and community, the other way we derive our identity and even happiness is from our work. Now, I know a lot of jobs suck, and I've worked many of them. I worked at a gas station for five years in the box, like, literally in the allegedly bulletproof glass box while I was working my way through college and all that. So a lot of jobs suck. But having a vocation and a purpose and a meaning and feeling like the work you do makes a difference is so central to who we are. And if you take that away, you can give us universal basic income that doesn't fill that need to creativity and purpose and meaning that is derived from certain types of work. And I would even argue, look, I think all work has dignity and is important. And certainly if you're a carpenter, you could make something physical. There's something there.

Charlie Sykes (50:07)

I was gonna say we all ought to get a skill. Gardening, carpentry, the kinds of things that are gonna be more difficult to replace with AI, but go on.

Matt Lewis (50:16)

I would think, though, that some of who thought they were immune, who deal in the world of ideas, might be harder hit by this shift than someone who just feels like, I'm just punching the clock. I'm punching the clock to pay the bills and put food on the table for my family. There's a lot of dignity in that. But they may not have the same sense of loss of stature that goes along with someone who, like, let's say I'm a professional writer, that gets me a certain respect and status. Well, let's just say, Charlie, our job has diminished in terms of status over the years.

Charlie Sykes (50:57)

I should say, well, you know, there are programs where I could feed in, say, 20 Matt Lewis columns and say, write me an essay in the voice of Matt Lewis about the biggest stories of 2026. And I'm not saying it's as good as you now, because it's not. You know, you'd probably recognize it now, six months from now, not totally sure. No, I guess part of it is all of these social things. You may say, why are you guys not talking about, you know, the economy and politics and what's going on? Well, one of the things we've learned is that indeed, politics is downstream from culture and that these things do trickle down and will affect in ways that were very, very unpredictable. As I said, let's go back to 2015. Try to imagine the world what you thought was going to happen, you know, if we were to talking about, you know, well, will there be any impact of, you know, all of these incels sitting around and you know, living, you know, off, off of their, their Internet feeds. Well, yes, it turns out that it would have a tremendous impact on the, on the world what's coming. Again, this will keep sociologists and psychologists busy for centuries, I'm afraid.

Matt Lewis (52:12)

Well, I would say, to be honest with you, 10 years ago I was starting to become concerned. The warning signs were starting to flash for me. You wrote a book, but 15 years ago I was really under this naive assumption not that the world is linear, but that we were really, I thought, problems of racism, they're not gonna go away, but we're just progressively slowly getting better. We're becoming more. I really felt that we were kind of just heading in the right direction in so many ways. And I also, even technology, I was like a kind of naive tech utopian. I really thought. And there's always trade offs good. And AI is going to have some good stuff too. We're going to cure diseases and help if you're someone who has a certain medical condition or you can now maybe communicate in a way that you couldn't have done before. So there's going to be positive externalities from it. And so I always knew that it wasn't a complete positive thing, but I thought in general, like technology, social media would have this positive democratizing effect. And I think at this point I would say that the negative outweighs the positive.

Charlie Sykes (53:34)

Well, I don't know, I mean, I'm glad you pointed this out because I do think that it's possible that diseases will be cured because the amount of research that can be done by advanced AI is beyond the capacities, particularly as you're dismantling the CDC and all of these other things. Maybe we will look back on this as like, yeah, that was bad, but you know, that damage was mitigated because we have advanced AI that is now sequencing DNA in such a way that we're able to, I don't know, cure cancer. I'm not over promising it, but again, we don't know. So what I'm saying is that there are things that have happened this year. You know, we have been focused very, very heavily on what's been happening in the federal government and the initiatification of the federal government. But I do think that, you know, this was a year in which the world order changed dramatically. The rule of law in America changed dramatically. Our expectations for the way our institutions functioned changed dramatically. What we don't know is how permanent that damage was, how deep the damage was, how fixable that damage was what survived and what didn't survive. So these are the questions that sort of linger from 2025. And Matt Lewis, thank you so much for at least on a preliminary basis, trying to sort through all of that. Thank you.

Matt Lewis (54:53)

Thank you, Charlie.

Charlie Sykes (54:54)

And have a great year. Happy New Year. Okay. Because we have a lot to talk about this year.

Matt Lewis (54:59)

Yeah, this one of the best things for me in 2025 has been starting to do these weekly conversations with you. So I look forward to a new year.

Charlie Sykes (55:06)

And you know, throughout that new year, what are we going to do? We're going to constantly remind you all that even though 2025 was kind of crazy, you are not the crazy ones. Thank you. Happy New Year.

Oregon Lottery Announcer (55:33)

Looking for a last minute gift for your people? You know, your people, that weird bunch of friends and family that you love dearly. Well, here's an easy idea. Oregon Lottery Holiday Scratch hits. Because your people, they're the ones that, amidst all the holiday crowds and endless notifications, help you find the fun, which calls for a little gift that brings big cheer. Oregon Lottery Holiday Scratchets. You know where to find them. Grab some today. Must be 18 or older to play. Lottery games are based on chance and should be played for entertainment only.

Andrew Yang (56:04)

Hi, I'm Andrew Yang. You may remember me as being the guy who wanted to get money into the hands of millions of Americans. Well, I'm still at it. And I'm now the founder of Noble Mobile, the first carrier that pays you to use your phone less. With Noble, you get unlimited Talk, text and 5G data on the T mobile network and you can earn up to $20 cash back a month for getting off your phone. Try it for just $10 a month at noblemobile.com yang. That's noblemobile.com and use my code yang10 to get paid to use your phone less.

Matt Lewis (56:36)

Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.

Charlie Sykes (56:43)

Greetings Adventurers is the longest running Dungeons and Dragons actual play comedy podcast that has been putting out episodes each and every week since 2012.

Blue Apron or Oregon Lottery Announcer (56:52)

And we think you'd love it. But don't take our word for it. Take theirs.

Charlie Sykes (56:56)

The thing I love most about Greetings Adventures is the interactive community. I've been listening for 10 years and now I'm a sophomore in college.

Matt Lewis (57:05)

The only podcast I've ever listened to for that long. Like there's nothing better. There's no limit on what might happen.

Charlie Sykes (57:10)

So just be prepared. Top tier comedy right here. The best representation of sitting around with.

Matt Lewis (57:17)

A group of idiots playing D and.

Charlie Sykes (57:18)

D. And it's not something you're just watching, it's something that you're experiencing. Download Green's Adventurers wherever you listen to podcasts. Can't wait to see the next episode. ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcast everywhere.

Matt Lewis (57:36)

Acast.com.