Happy New Year DU! [View all]

[EarlG]

We can probably all agree that 2025 was a terrible year. I won't attempt to recap the many, many travesties that have occurred over the past twelve months, since it would take far too long and would be far too depressing -- and anyway, retrospection is more of an activity for New Year's Eve. On this New Year's Day, I suspect that most of us would prefer to look forward, not backward.

I think that with 2025 behind us, there are things to be hopeful for in 2026. While Trump's deplorable policies continue to be carried out by his minions -- often illegally -- the man himself is fading. He's unpopular, and as Americans watch his policies drive up costs and collapse what remains of the social safety net, his approval ratings seem unlikely to improve. With the country seemingly desperate to bring back checks and balances, and without MAGA's diminishing figurehead on the ballot this year, Democrats appear primed to take back at least the House, if not the Senate. The fight is a long way from over, but this could be the year that the political tides turn in our favor.

This year -- in just a few weeks in fact -- DU will celebrate its 25th birthday. Skinner and I launched the site on January 20th, 2001 -- the day George W. Bush was inaugurated -- and I still remember the Free Republic post from those early weeks, in which a confident Freeper stated, "Go back in a few months and they won't even be there." Well, a quarter-century later, we're still here.

After a frankly exhausting 2025, I don't have anything special planned for the anniversary. But that doesn't mean we're resting on our laurels this year. One of the great things about DU for me is that it is, and always has been, different. While we've incorporated a few of the better ideas that the Internet has come up with in the last 25 years (for example, recommending posts), we've always carved our own path (for example, the Jury-based moderating system).

We've also done our level best to stay far away from the enshittification that has ruined so much of the Internet over the last decade. Yes, our software is a little janky and a little old-fashioned, but I don't necessarily consider that to be a negative. Unlike modern social media services, we haven't tried to hook you with endless scrolls and personally-invasive addiction algorithms. We aren't trying to vacuum up as much of your personal information as we can get our hands on -- an email address and a pseudonym is all you need to participate here. We still have to run ads, because those ads bring in vital revenue that is necessary to keep DU online. But we offer an ad-free experience that can be bought for as much or as little as you like -- you will find neither paywalls, nor the slowly-turning screw of forced monthly subscription increases at DU. This remains a community that is to a large degree run and funded by its own members.

However, over the past few years it has been difficult to avoid some of the modern Internet's uglier trends. The Internet now seems driven almost entirely by AI, misinformation, and clickbait, and it is becoming harder than ever to separate the wheat from the chaff. I am well aware that plenty of you would like to see us get a handle on some of these unappealing trends as they unfortunately bleed over onto DU, so one of my priorities in 2026 is to see what I can do to reduce the impact that those trends have on this community. This might require some left-field solutions -- I've previously spoken at length about why we can't just add a standard Jury alert for "AI" or "misinformation" -- but if you've been around DU for any length of time, you'll know that left-field solutions are our specialty.

I'm not going to lay out any potential solutions just yet, but my feeling is that because of its people-powered nature, separating the wheat from the chaff is what DU has been very good at for the past 25 years, and I see no reason for that to stop now. So rest assured that this year I will be doing what I can to make sure that DU lives up to its promise as a unique, friendly community filled with useful and reliable information for everyone on the left side of the political spectrum, and I'm sure you would all like to join me in that endeavor.

Beyond that, we have a long run-up to the mid-term elections this year, which I think we are all hoping will be a blowout. And after that, we have the exciting prospect of a completely fresh Democratic presidential primary contest. A changing of the guard is coming, and many of the old leaders that we've been used to over the past 25 years are stepping aside in favor of the next generation. Over the next couple of years we are going to see a lot of new faces, new ideas, and new actions to take back the country from Trump and MAGA.

So as we move into 2026, despite everything going on around us, I remain hopeful that the political tide is slowly turning, and that from this chaos will come new opportunities to make America a better place. I plan to spend my time both working to achieve that goal, as well as watching history unfold along with all of you here at DU.

Happy New Year!