5 Reasons for New Year’s Optimism in 2025 - Rob Horowitz
Rób Horowitz, MINDSETTER™
5 Reasons for New Year’s Optimism in 2025 - Rob Horowitz
This year, I do the same. It remains the nature of news and opinion writing that positive developments get short shrift.
As we begin 2025, 5 reasons for optimism are outlined below:
· The phone-free schools' movement is gaining momentum as more individual schools, school districts, and even a few states around the nation ban the use of cell phones during the school day, showing they mean business by collecting phones at the beginning of the day and not returning them until the end. This is an important first step in curbing depression, anxiety, amped-up bullying, and reduced school performance stemming from the advent and ubiquity of the smartphone.
· As they did in Donald Trump’s first term, state and local governments can counter Donald Trump’s heat-up-the-planet anyway possible approach, keeping us on track to hit the national climate goals we’ve committed to under the Paris Global Climate Agreement. A University of Maryland Center for Global Sustainability analysis that factors in Trump’s victory finds that the 2035 national greenhouse gas emissions goal of reducing net carbon emissions by at least 61% below 2005 levels is achievable if state and local governments step up once again.
· Violent crime continues its decline. Based on the numbers that have come in so far, the homicide rate is expected to drop by more than 10% in 2024—the second year in a row at about this level of decline. We are now at or below pre-pandemic levels, according to the Brookings Institution, with even more pronounced declines in our cities. Prioritizing effective crime-fighting strategies is paying off. These include adding more police officers and training them in a community policing approach, taking illegal guns off the streets, and investing in after-school and other evidence-based crime prevention programs.
· Despite having gone through our first serious bout of inflation in more than 40 years, the American economy remains “the envy of the world,” according to The Economist. With annual GDP approaching $30 trillion, steady economic growth, low unemployment, and the stock market at record highs, the economy overall is performing well. The Federal Reserve has succeeded in taming inflation without triggering a recession. From a high of 9.1% in 2022, inflation is now down to 2.7%, approaching the Fed’s target of 2%.
· Although the Constitution was written more than two centuries ago, the framers designed it with the dangers of a president with the authoritarian instincts of Donald Trump very much in mind. The precise features that can sometimes serve as a frustrating obstacle to effective government action, such as separation of powers, checks and balances, and the amount of power reserved to the states, have stood the test of time as bulwarks of our republic. While limiting the damage that Donald Trump can do to our democracy will still require judges, members of Congress, governors, and engaged American citizens to fulfill their responsibilities, the Constitution remains an essential and still powerful guardrail.