Monday Edition: Where America Stands in 2025

Heading into 2025, Americans are down on the general direction of the country, but hopeful President-elect Trump can turn things around. (NYT)

The vibes: In a new essay making the case that “traditional metrics” suggest Trump is inheriting a country that’s actually in pretty good shape, New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker noted recent Gallup polls showed only 19% of Americans think the U.S. is heading in the right direction, while 52% said they’re worse off than before President Biden took office.

• Meanwhile, a Monmouth University poll from last month found a majority of Americans (53%) are optimistic about the incoming administration’s policies.

How Trump sees things: The president-elect’s bleak view of the country — illustrated by a post he made on Truth Social last week — matches the public mood.

The headlines: Recent events could be seen as validating Trump’s outlook and underscoring the nation’s somber mood.

• Following New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s victory lap on New York City subway crime in late December, a spate of violent incidents (including an illegal Guatemalan migrant setting a sleeping woman on fire) rocked the Big Apple’s transit system.

• On New Year’s Day, an ISIS-inspired terrorist killed 14 people and wounded 35 others in New Orleans.

• Last week, a Green Beret who feared the U.S. “collapse” blew up a Tesla Cybertruck outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas, wounding seven people.

• In the latest example of Congressional dysfunction and chaos, the GOP-controlled House narrowly managed to pass a last minute, short-term bill to fund the government last month, but only after frantic negotiations and infighting.

• As concerns about government spending and waste mount, the U.S. national debt hit a record $36 trillion in November.

• MAGA backlash to Elon Musk’s support for H1-B visas has led to concerns about systemic abuses of the program.

Bubba’s Two Cents

It’s undeniable that great things are still happening in this country, but let’s be honest—problems abound, too. Many Americans appear exhausted by pundits who downplay their struggles and offer simplistic reassurances that everything’s just fine.

President-elect Trump’s endorsement of Mike Johnson for House speaker, as well as his stance on specialty foreign worker visas has some supporters questioning what the MAGA movement stands for. (Politico)

H-1B visas: Following MAGA backlash over Elon Musk praising the H-1B visa program and declaring it necessary for the U.S. to remain economically competitive, Trump told the New York Post he’s “always liked” visas and called the H-1B system a “great program.”

• “We need smart people coming into our country. We need a lot of people coming in. We're going to have jobs like we've never had before,” Trump told reporters last week.

• In 2016, Trump said employers were using the H-1B system as a “cheap foreign labor program” at the expense of American workers.

The response: The controversy has unearthed a split between the tech and business coalition that helped Trump get elected and MAGA diehards, many of whom oppose all forms of immigration, whether skilled or unskilled, legal or illegal.

What Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, told Politico: “You’ve got to understand, even if you’re the most MAGA of MAGA people, these guys helped Trump get elected, and he owes them.”

What International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers secretary Gay Henson told Politico: “I actually met with him personally on this issue in 2020…and Trump basically said, ‘Americans need American jobs first,’… And what’s confusing to me is it sounds like now he’s listening to tech billionaires and tech employers on how the visa program ought to work, and saying the opposite of what he was thinking then.”

House speaker: While “MAGA Mike” was once seen as a welcome replacement to former speaker Kevin McCarthy, Trump’s supporters have come to view Johnson as an establishment sellout for his record on a variety of subjects, including his support for Ukraine aid.

• Trump, long celebrated as an anti-establishment crusader vowing to banish "RINOs" from D.C. and “drain the swamp,” disappointed some in the MAGA base by throwing his support behind Johnson in the new speaker race.

Bubba’s Two Cents

Since Trump burst onto the political scene in the 2016 election, observers have tried to box the MAGA movement into a neat ideological framework. They’ve said things like, “MAGA is economic nationalism with a populist bent,” or "MAGA represents anti-globalism and pro-sovereignty ideals” or "MAGA is a working-class revolt against the political elite." There’s some truth to these intellectual exercises. But at the end of the day, MAGA is probably best understood as a vibe embodied in Trump, who certainly has a package of policies he’s genuinely passionate about (immigration, tariffs, low taxes) but is much more of a pragmatist than an ideologue.

New York City’s congestion pricing, enacted to alleviate traffic and send sorely needed revenue to the city’s beleaguered transit system, officially went into effect on Sunday. (New York Post)

The details: The city has implemented a tiered system for drivers entering Manhattan south of 60th Street during peak hours.

• Passenger car tolls: $9 during peak hours (originally $15).

• Small truck tolls: $14.40.

• Large truck tolls: $21.60.

The numbers: The program is expected to generate $15 billion through bond financing, funding subway signal modernization, station upgrades and an expanded electric bus fleet.

• Fare evasion and sluggish ridership recovery after the pandemic have left the Metropolitan Transit Authority staring down a potential $3 billion budget shortfall by 2028.

• The MTA reported in August that 48% of bus riders were boarding without paying fares.

• The congestion pricing plan is projected to decrease the number of vehicles entering the affected zone by at least 13%.

The results (so far): Congestion pricing advocates took a victory lap Sunday as early data showed greatly reduced travel times compared to average weekends.

The politics: Republicans, including President-elect Trump, have come out against the congestion tax, arguing it unfairly impacts suburban drivers and forces passengers onto a dysfunctional and dangerous subway system.

• In the past few weeks alone, a number of deadly and violent incidents have taken place on the New York subway system, including a passenger being stabbed in the chest on a Metro-North train, a Christmas Eve double slashing in Grand Central, a woman set on fire and killed on the F train and a straphanger pushed in front of an oncoming train.

• Ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft have spent millions in NYC to promote congestion pricing, the New York Post reported.

Bubba’s Two Cents

I think we should evaluate the congestion pricing program based on tangible outcomes and current realities rather than hypothetical scenarios. The media’s credibility has eroded due to an over-reliance on speculation, and now we’re flooded with armchair analysts—on X, in podcasts, or in op-eds—offering shallow takes on everything from foreign policy to policing to the economy. While shaping policies with a vision for the future is important, shouldn’t we prioritize evidence over conjecture?