Hey everybody, it's James Lindsay, and you are listening to the New Discourses podcast.

Welcome to 2025. This will be the first new discourses podcast of the new year.

And it's going to be an exciting new year, I think. As a matter of fact, I think that all of the drama and excitement

that we enjoyed in 2024 and all of the drama and excitement we enjoyed in 23 and 22 are just

kind of a warm-up act to the amount of drama we should probably expect to enjoy in 25.

Now, I hope I'm wrong.

I hope that when President Trump takes office,

which may have already happened by the time this comes out,

but has not happened now,

I hope that after President Trump takes office,

there's enough leadership and clarity of direction and optimism around what he is doing and is able to do, that we end up in a trajectory that I think a lot of us hoped for and campaigned for and voted for a trajectory toward truly making America,

not just great and healthy and strong and all the rest again, but making America sane again.

But that's precisely what I do not expect us to be afforded.

So this podcast, I guess, it's a new year,

is in a sense a state of the union podcast from me or address. I don't want to steal the thunder

of the real thing. And I don't feel positively. I've gone around the country for several years now and frequently remarked from stage

in rooms with crowds, whatever, that I'm probably the most optimistic person in the room.

Well, no more.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm extremely pessimistic in a room full of

bubbling optimists. I'm very concerned about what's going on, and that's the topic of the podcast

today, which is going to be a little bit rambly, I think. I apologize. I don't want to drag it out,

but I made no notes. This is completely off the cuff. I'm just going to talk.

...