Hello and welcome to This Day, a history show from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

And Happy New Year, everyone.

Welcome to 2026 and welcome to America's 250th birthday.

As you may know, this is a big year for this country, our semi-Quincennial,

and it is also a big year for this podcast. We have got our year-long series, 50 weeks that

shaped America on the way, 50 deep dive, two-part episodes that we think will help add up to the

story of how we got to this moment. That officially launches on Tuesday, but today we're going to

take a look ahead to what 2026 may have in store with what I'm calling our predictions and

provocations for 2026. I'm joined, as always, by Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter

Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there. Hello, Jody. Happy New Year. Hey there. Happy New Year. Yeah, happy New Year. Did you cast that there were two ball drops on New Year's Eve? There was one for 2026 and then they took the ball back up. It got red, white, and blue lights all over, and then they dropped it again to mark America's birthday. So, you know, always happy for a ball drop. Well, and I think you can never stay up later now. That's true. That's birthday. So, you know. Always happy for a ball drop. Sure.

I can never stay up late enough. That's true. That's true. But you can watch it the next day on YouTube. It's fine. 10 p.m. I'm out. Also, good way to get your money's worth. I've always thought that it's, you know, whatever. Go to Times Square. Not for me, but sure. but then to just sit there and watch the ball drop for like whatever it is, eight seconds.

So you got double that at least for being out there. Go to Times Square, not for me, but sure, but then to just sit there and watch the ball jump for like whatever it is, eight seconds.

So you got double that at least for being out there as we enter America 250.

So look, here's what we're going to do today.

We are going to do, as I said, predictions and provocations.

So this is anything that's on your mind heading into 2026, things that you're watching big and small. We can be very specific. We can be very big think. We're each going to do about, I don't know, three or four, depending on how this goes. So you're ready to jump in? Let's do it. I feel like Kelly and I both definitely have very long. Yeah, yeah. Good. Well, we'll work our way through it. Now, one quick thing for our listeners before we dive in is that we have posted the full cut of this episode with video for our newsletter subscribers. So if you are already a subscriber to the newsletter, go check it out. It's in your inbox right now. If you've been meaning to join, maybe a New Year's resolution for 2026, consider this your nudge. I just want to be clear,

the whole 50-week series will always be free in this podcast feed if that's where you're listening.

But the newsletter is really where we're going to try and build a community around all of this.

We have our weekly America 250-watch emails, bonus conversations, monthly Q&As, other subscriber-only

conversations. So if you subscribe, it helps

keep this show going strong, and it is a really great way to support what we are up to.

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