It’s New Year’s Eve. Goddamn, this has been an awful year.
There is nothing magical about this date, it’s just another day in a long series of them, we’re just going to change the number of the year, but there are things I’ll be wishing to happen (while having low expectations that anything will happen.)
For 2026, I would like to see the rule of law creep back. I want white nationalism to be repudiated. I want vengeance: I want the fascists in government arrested and locked away.
Is that too much to ask?
If not, throw in the end of capitalism, the collapse of the AI bubble, and the death of Trump.



My hope for 2026 is that the Democratic party can come up with better messages and better ads for the upcoming midterms.
Those Republicans who are now distancing themselves from Trump, for their midterm elections? Remind the public how those same politicians were being ever loving toadies to Trump in 2025.
Remind the public about all the ways the Republican candidates promised things to be better in 2025, only to help make those same things worse instead.
Did they pose with Trump? Have those images share space with photos of Trump and Epstein, the two people who the candidate hasn’t ever spoken against, while “thank heavens for little girls” plays.
I’m just a Canadian nobody. If the professional messengers of the Democratic party can only come up with worse messaging, fire them and replace them with the people who can do that job.
Besides the death of Trump, I hope for everything in Government with his name on it gets demolished. His ballroom, his arch, all the fake gold he has adorned the White House in needs to be removed, and anything else he touched. The Kennedy Center should also be demolished, his has tarnished and corrupted it, demolish it and build a sparkling new one with the just JFK’s name. His name must be eliminated from the history of our government, just like he tries to eliminate history he doesn’t like.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I recall 2019 becoming 2020 and sending memes alluding to 20/20 vision to friends and acquaintances. How did 2020 work out for us? Seems something was in the air already.
One would think the bar really low with 2025. Could it go lower? Maybe send James Cameron down to the trench in a submersible to retrieve that bar?
Hopefully Desantis gets prosecuted. Maybe a blue tsunami in November leads Trump and lickspittle cronies to a similar fate.
At least the Kansas City Chiefs won’t be in the Super Bowl so the power couple will be out of the spotlight. F1 cars will be a little different and Sergio “Checo” Perez returns with a…checks notes…Cadillac.
Measles and other diseases will increase thanks to Robert Felching Kennedy and MAHA loons.
Hate to be a downer, but I expect 2026 to be more of the same as 2025 and perhaps worse. If Donny and the Repugs don’t get their way in the mid-terms then lord knows what they’ll do. Remember January 6, 2020? It could go way beyond that.
I heard an English historian say last night that the reason we celebrate January 1st as New Years is because sometime in the 150s BCE the Romans needed to name someone to deal with a situation in Hispania but they could only fill that position on New Years. At the time, Romans celebrated New Years on March 1st. Rather than change the law about when they could fill the position, they changed when New Years was celebrated to January 1st. I don’t now if that’s accurate but the woman is a professor at Oxford or Cambridge so she has some cred.
It’s been a bad year. The next one will probably be worse.
YES! REVENGE!
You don’t need to completely tear down buildings like the Kenedy Center. Far more fun would be to remove his name in the most public and embarrassing manner possible.
Aside: I’m waiting for the Trump Reagan National Airport. 8-)
“vengeance”
I don’t think you want vengeance, you simply want actual justice. We’ve just had so damn little of it for the past decade.
“There is nothing magical about this date”
but … about 2025:
(1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9) squared is 2025
1 cubed + 2 cubed + 3 cubed +… + 9 cubed is 2025.
@robro:
That story is in a serious “Time in Roman Religion” book: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hTDku_ZQ0JgC&pg=PA15
though it adds that “it seems likely that [January 1st] had long supplanted March 1 in marking the commencement of the Roman year (see Michels 1967 97-100).” So that’s arguing it was more changing the consular date (from March 15th, not March 1st) to the one that was already used by people for other purposes.
We, too, hope for a less destructive, less murderous new year. We hope you and your loved ones have a 2026 of health and safety.
However, we see that everyday the increasingly massive push by obscenely wealthy magat plutocrats make what you, and we, wish for less likely to happen. The sad part is that corporate democrats are aiding and abetting that Death Spiral.
In the 2026 off year elections, the GOP will learn, America is not ready to cripple ACA, Medicare, Medicaid, And Social Security. Big Pharma has just announced price rises for a large selections of drugs. People don’t want to make it harder to vote to get GOP politicians elected. Rusiia is not our friend. Good Americans will be sick and tired of the antics of ICE. 2026 will be a mandate election. And goodby to political Kirkism and project 2025.
A bit more for Ethicsgradients #9 observation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squared_triangular_number
Can someone with better online-search resources/know-how help me with a calendrical question?
My subjective impression is that this year there have been many more headlines with “2026” in them than “2025”. T/F?
There is nothing special about a number? Ask the ghost of Srinivasa Ramanujan. (If you know, you know).
Good news in time for the new year.
“GOP gets WIPED OUT in Shock Election Loss In IOWA!!”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=t-LCX-LS7_4
.
A different bias:
“Trump Allies Deserting Him in Droves”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZZAJzR5ok_w
I just want this Blue Wave thing to happen, and hope it’s enhanced by smarter policies, rather than preemptive “compromise.”
I agree with PZ!
also, “revengeance” should be a word.
The prisons aren’t big enough to contain all the MAGAts that deserve a heapin’ helpin’ of JUSTICE.
So, my suggestion is to empty out Gitmo and turn it over to the MAGAts. They can use the torture facilities to root out traitors in their midst (there’s MANY, I’m sure).
Then, after a year of hijinks, whisper to Cuba “no ours any more. Have fun”.
More good news. PZ, pay attention!
“Researchers identify protein that mimics exercise to boost bone strength in aging adults”
.https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-12-protein-mimics-boost-bone-strength.html
I want the bogus Democrats in the party leadership to be primaried. Chuck Shumer et al. Otherwise it will be another Obama period, with no legal consequences for the weasels and the Republicans bouncing back as hopes for fundamental reforms are dashed.
Let’s just bring back the terror of Robespierre, that would be the spirit! /s
Hossenfelder:
Not the end of the AI bubble but maybe of quantum computers.
“Why Quantum Computers might never work”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=WeVGJr6h-CQ
The creator of Dilbert, Scott Adams has prostate cancer. I don’t want him to die but it would be nice if the scare triggers some introspection.
.
As for Rupert Murdoch, the individual who made a generation of US grandparents racists and paved the road for Dubya and Trump in USA and the Tory dregs in Britan…yeah, he can die. In fact, he is overdue in Tartaros.
Captain Kendrick @ 21
I like the ambience you bring to the thread!
Be careful what you wish for.
I for one would like to see the application of good laws and the disobedience of bad ones.
Well, the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble burst in 2000, but dot.coms are ubiquitous now.
When the AI bubble bursts, expect the same.
The tech ain’t going nowhere.
—
billseymour @7, a degradation ceremony would be rather nice.
cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cashiering
John Morales @ 26
We need a Degradation song, preferally based on The Inquisition Song by Mel Brooks. With DJT & Stephen Mills et al chained up as in the film.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=NUMkcBctE7c