Welcome to the To the Contrary podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes.

2025 was a massive stress test of our institutions, the rule of law, American democracy, and what it felt like to be an American.

So let's talk about all of this, what was lost, what was broken, and how did we survive?

This will be the first of a series of Year in Review shows. Stick around

as we have a lot of work to do here.

And joining me in our first year in review show, our good friend Susan Glasser from the New Yorker. Susan, how are you? You made it. You made it to the end of the year. Well, exactly. Great to be with you, Charlie. Thank you so much. Well, we have a lot of ground to cover. So let's just talk about this this year. And there's so much to do. And I'm going to try to keep it thematic because as opposed to, you know, the top 10 stories that happened this particular year.

But give me your sense because you've been covering this for a very long time.

How would you compare 2025, the first year of Trump's second administration, with 2017, the first year of his first administration?

Because we thought that 2017 was a wild and

crazy ride. And now it seems, wow, much calmer in comparison. Give me a sense of what's different

in 2025 versus 2017. Yeah, I mean, look, I think I'm glad to start with that, Charlie, because in many ways, I think part of the shock of 2025 is people having forgotten that this is not year one of the Trump era in our politics, but, you know, essentially year 10, if you go back to when he first rode down that golden escalator, you know.

And so 10 years in, part of the story is that we become in order that we've forgotten

just all the disruption and upheaval that brought us to this moment.

And so I think the reason a lot of people look back on 2017 and have this sense that

somehow it wasn't as crazy or disruptive as 2025 is because institutions were still

functioning in a way that they're not anymore or that, you know,

they've become significantly deteriorated. To me, the big story of Trump's first term,

especially the beginning of his first term, was the unfinished business of fully taking over

and consolidating his power over the Republican Party.

And so Trump is still fighting the kind of rear guard action

with holdout Republican establishment types

who hadn't expected him to win in 2016.

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